There and Back Again

本庄〜またね！

Well, I'm home now! That is to say I'm back in Seattle, Washington -- town of the needle that reaches SPACE and the 1962 transportation gift to mankind: the Monorail (you're welcome, world). I will no doubt face new adventures in this strange yet familiar land... such as unemployment, making friends, and reminding myself not to bow to Asian people I see on the street. This will take time.

The last few days in Honjo were spent huddling over my toilet and, in a way, letting my feelings out. Anxiety hit my stomach with a wave of vengeance such as the world had never seen. I spent my last Saturday night in Japan with a high fever, body aches, and nausea while Kate and Natanya , Champions of wellness and friendship, spoon-fed me ginger ale as we watched "Walk Hard" (which certainly didn't help my bout of illness).

I continued going to work, usually just for a few hours to talk to people, feel like the butterflies in my stomach were stabbing each other for drug-money with ice picks, and rushing home to finish packing and cleaning. On my last weekend, besides feeling ill, I shipped my two enormous suitcases to the airport via 空港サービス (airport service). Thank God for Japan -- my suitcases weighed 110 lbs together and there was no way I could have handled them by myself on the trains to the airport without the guardian angels of Kuroneko Yamato special delivery service. I also completed and handed out all of my gift bags, which were comprised of folded paper cranes and Hershey kisses thrown into adorably patterned plastic bags. I managed to gift these to 70 people -- おつかれさまでした!

On Sunday I felt well enough to drive down to Mineyama to have dinner with Megan, Kate, Eric and Yumi at Honeycomb and to ship my iMac desktop computer to the US via express delivery service. However, the delivery people, who usually deliver within Japan, wanted to charge me about $600 for their services, which I declined. I decided instead to use the FedEx/Kinko's in Kyoto city and save about $350 in doing so. Still, it meant I had another 25lb box to schlep down to Kyoto on my final day in Japan, which would not be fun.

Monday was a particularly sad day for me as I said goodbye to all four of my schools, my neighbours, and my entire Board of Education. I gave a speech, managed not to choke up, and left the building for the last time with Nishihara-san (my supervisor for two years who has done everything for me). We said some teary goodbyes and had a nice big hug and a final photo together. I sure will miss that lady.

I then sobbed, "DON'T FORGET ME INE~" while driving away from Ine and its beautiful boathouses and bay and continued my way South to Miyazu. I would spend the night at Yumi's family's house in hopes of finding comfort my last night with a familiar family. The Okkuda family showed me a great time! We watched Japanese game shows on TV while eating delicious steak and shrimp -- yum! Yumi's crazy mother then insisted that I take one of her "antique" vases as Japanese omiyage... though I feel that I was snookered into taking something she didn't really want anymore. Still, it's the thought. I then took a nice hot bath and curled up on a futon and watched cartoons with Yumi until we both fell asleep.

The following morning was another sad, teary, Japanese goodbye. The worst of all because it was a goodbye to YUMI. I can't imagine what my life would have been without her, but it would have been bleak and without dental appointments for certain. In any case it was completely awful and afterward she went to work and I drove to my car lease company to drop off dear Shadowfax the Car. The company owner was kind enough to drive me, my carry-on luggage, and my ridiculously large iMac computer to Mineyama station to meet Kate and her entourage of merry high school teachers for one last Tango goodbye.

A photo of Kate and Natanya at the Mineyama post office, sending their boxes home.

Kate and I hopped the train to Kyoto City, meeting up with Natanya along the way. It was nice to have a relaxing train ride before our final goodbye to Kate, who has gone back to Minnesota since. Natanya and I then wandered over to the FedEx/Kinko's and were successful in sending home my desktop computer. My arms were very thankful to relieve themselves of the bulky burden (ouch!). We then grabbed lunch at a really strange cafe -- the servers were all attractive young men and the patrons were nearly all middle-aged Japanese women. It was a bit eerie, but they served sparkling wine, so who were we to question their practices?

Natanya and I then returned to Kyoto station to seek out cheap and adorable souvenirs from Japan for our friends and family. I bought a lot of small handkerchief type presents as they were the only items I was able to squeeze into my ridiculous luggage. Who doesn't need a handkerchief, right? ...right?

The best part of the day was meeting Danielle and Lauren for ramen and beer at Kyoto station -- I hadn't seen Danielle in months and we talked more about her wedding next March in Colorado and about the house that she and her fiancé are having built. It's so exciting to hear about these things and it's nice to know that Danielle will continue living her life in Osaka and that I'll be able to stay in contact with her, and thus stay in contact with Japan.

Lauren, Natanya and I went to stay at Lauren's apartment for the night. We studied vocabulary in Lauren's GRE book (Avert your eyes, you captious braggart!) and hunkered down for the night watching some of Grey's Anatomy (THERE'S A BOMB IN THE PATIENT! CODE BLACK! CODE BLACK!) It was my last night in Japan, but I managed to catch a few hours of sleep anyway.

The next several hours were uneventful. I went to the airport, picked up my enormous suitcases, managed to get them on the flight without paying extra, ended up in Seoul, Korea for five boring hours, hopped another flight to Seattle where I sat next to an elderly Korean man with the CONSUMPTION, and ended up in Zaydeh's condo on Alaskan Way. Yes, I realise that's all one sentence, but it feels like I did the whole thing in one big breath.

So now it's over (the blog and the flight and all that). I'm pleased and punch to be back in a familiar yet exciting area and I'm looking forward to what's happening next. So far, I've been helping Zaydeh look through Bubbeh's old things. Not that the things are necessarily old, but I suppose one starts calling things 'old' when somebody passes away. I'm not sure I agree with it. Let's just say, we're going through Bubbeh's "effects". That woman kept 5 can-openers and 5 sets of silverware. Don't even get me started on the margarita mug shaped like a cactus or the entire cabinet of paper plates. This is going to be fun.

So until I decide on what to call the next blog, このブロッグを読んでくれてありがとうございました。Thanks for reading my blog. It was fun to write, fun to look back on -- and I hope it was fun to read.

Rachel

Solar Eclipse : Moon eats Sun

Yesterday there was a solar eclipse that we could see in Japan! I learned that the word for solar eclipse is 日食 -- the first kanji means sun, and the second kanji means 'to eat' or 'food'. So, I suppose that the meaning comes from the sight of the moon eating the sun. Delicious!
The students and teachers grabbed some nerd-glasses and were able to view the eclipse during the few sunny parts of the day. From the sound of it, most others in Kyoto couldn't see the eclipse through the cloud cover. Alas!
Anyway, it was neat. A lovely spectacle for my last day at Honjo JHS. I felt sad cleaning out my desk and taking my shoes out of their cubby, but I'll be seeing those folks on Friday for what will go down in enkai history as "the drinkiest day of all." Honjo JHS loves their beer.

After that I went home and finished up my "thank you presents" for people around my town and schools. I'm making each person an origami paper crane and throwing it in a plastic bag with some hershey kisses and hugs (thanks to my sister). It's not much, but I have 70+ people to thank, so I was thinking thriftily.

In the evening I drove to Sutenten in Iwataki to meet my friend Yasuka to have dinner with her. We only lasted an hour before we were both full and sleepy. It was nice to see her one on one again (usually I see her with a lot of other people around). I will certainly feel the sting of leaving all my Japanese friends. Boo.

Penultimate

These two weeks have been very busy and I've had to say goodbye to a lot of things that have been constants in my life for two years now. To name a few; schools, calligraphy, Ian and Kirby.
I've visited both of my junior high schools and elementary schools and read speeches that skim the surface of how I feel, but in Japanese that I can manage (which matters to me!) I received colourful cards from all of my schools, some with photographs, and all of them with notes from the students. It was a really perfect gift for me. The elementary schools sang me songs and the junior high schoolers read English speeches, which I was surprisingly touched by hearing. It's hard not to remember what those students looked like two years ago when they were all much smaller and less brave.

Classes have gone on summer holiday, and now all there's left to do is wait out the week, pack up the rest of the house, and go to Seattle.

Ine JHS couldn't find a free day to go out to dinner with me, so they threw me a farewell lunch on the last day of school. We gathered in the Principal's office and toasted with cups of tea and bentos. Then the staff sang me a surprise English song -- oddly, Edelweiss. Broom and glow forever.


On Friday I had a farewell party with the staff from the Board of Education (9 of us in all). We went out to a pretty izakaya in Nodagawa with a koi pond in the back and suggestively-shaped pudding on the menu (which we ordered, naturally). Mrs. Nishihara, my supervisor for two years, gave a short speech, followed by a slightly less short speech by the Head of the BOE. They gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a card with the Japanese hina-sama (dolls) on it, and a mug made by Ine's own potter, Mrs. Kura. The handle is a fish! Afterward there was drinking and story-telling and we went home considerably early since it was an exhausting week.

The following morning, I drove with Kate and Natanya down to Kyoto City to take Kirby to the ferret adoption agency in Nagoya. Natanya, champion of friendship and love, came with me for moral support. We took the shinkansen to Nagoya station and met up with a unique-looking Japanese woman, Ms. Ishihara. She took Kirby and all of his documents and gave me a BIG hug and left with him. As I watched her carrying him away, I burst into tears. I think that all the stress from leaving plus saying goodbye to so many people plus losing my pet, the only thing that's really kept me from going insane in my house, was more than I could bear at that moment.

However, I had planned for this outburst of emotion and Natanya and I immediately changed into party dresses for the long, local train ride back. We briefly explored the area around Nagoya station and were disappointed but how unexciting the post office was. We did however find a lot of cheap wine in the department store basement. By the time we arrived at Kyoto station in the afternoon, we were delightfully smashed. This helped me feel less empty since I was coming back without Kirby's travel cage.

We met Ian and Kate at Nijo station and went for a quick dinner at a ramen shop near the movie theatre. Then, after meeting up with Lauren, we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which received mixed reviews from the group. I personally enjoyed it. Following this, I fell into a sleepy/sad stupour and we wandered over to a nearby bar for drinks and french fries until about 1am, by which time we went to bed in various locations.

The next morning I took a bus to meet Lauren at the Kyoto Station Starbucks to hang out for a bit and say goodbye. We talked about how it's hard for things to feel as definite as "I'll never see this person again" because of facebook and twitter and skype and g-chat. That helped us both feel better, I think.



After a hearty Hawaiian hug, I took off for Kameokoa to say goodbye to Laurel and eat donuts at Mister Donut! It was really nice to see her again, and I'm pleased that she'll be taking over the Ganbatte Times newsletter for me as well. Rachel2, Natanya, Ian and Kate then showed up in Kameoka and we drove up to Ine together after saying goodbye to Laurel.

The last hurrah in Ine was exactly what I needed so as not to feel awful about coming home to an empty, ferret-less house. Instead, the lot of us cooked up a curry and played dominoes until the wee hours. Cake was thrown, wine was spilled, and allergies were developed -- a perfect evening.

Ian would soon teach Kate how to throw a punch. Kate would soon take a Benadryl and pass out.

The next day after a leisurely breakfast we all walked over to the Tsutsukawa Buddha statue and followed giant crayfish down the gutters. We also spotted a lot of tiny frogs (some with tails still) sitting on the hydrangea bushes!

Can you find the frog?

After the walk it was time to say goodbye, so I gave Rachel2 and Ian some big hugs, we took photos, and off they went. I'm not sure when I'll see them next, but I feel optimistic it will be sooner than later.

Today I went to my last shuji (calligraphy) class with Mrs. Kamitsuji and the junior high school students. When my daily calligraphy was done, Kamitsuji-sensei presented me with some binders of all the work I've done in 2 years and a letter from her. I was really touched, and saying goodbye to her and that class and that room is something that I'm still having trouble with. That seems more forever than saying goodbye to JETs. On my way out, some of my elementary school students gave me some plums from their garden and I drove home feeling overwhelmed with happiness.

Yep, that's right -- I feel happy, not sad. I can easily say that some of the worst days of my life have been in Japan. And working on the JET Programme hasn't exactly been a dream job or a career path for me... but I feel so fortunate that I got to live here for two years that I can't help but feel happy instead of sad. I learned Japanese calligraphy, I've watched the rice in its circle of life, I've seen frogs and snakes and eagles and boar and tanuki. I've become conversational at a language I never really set out to learn. I've fallen in love with teaching. Really, I've fallen in love with life. I think Ine will always be the place where I learned how to be a person, and I learned how to be accountable for things other than myself. There's no amount of bad days that can reverse that experience, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

This blog will soon draw to a close, but it will always be here to remind me of all the memories I've had these two years. There's just not enough room in my heart and in my head to keep it all inside, so I'm glad that I've written it down where it can't be erased.

So, in this last week of living in Japan and living in Ine specifically, I'm going to take the good. I'm not going to accept the sadness, but I'm going to hold onto the profound gratitude that I've been feeling ever since it sank in that I'm going onto a different kind of future. So in the end, I really think it's going to be OK.

Farewell, Bike!

I sold my bike! The Yasaka JET, Megan (Leigh's successor) offered to pay me for my lovely, Dr. Pepper can-coloured bicycle! Hooray! So, she drove the long road up to Ine and I introduce her to her new fly ride.

After re-homing a few rogue spiders, we pushed the bike over to her kei-car SUV and tried to put it inside, failing spectacularly! We would need a wrench to take the front tire off the bike... but where could we find one?

A-ha! Surely the gas station would have a wrench. Don't cars have bolts or whathaveyou? So, I valiantly rode the bike one last time in the humidity of this fair seaside village all the way to the gas station.

When I arrived, Megan was standing off to the side while everyone at the gas station (all two people) stared at her unapologetically. We explained what needed to be done, and the trusty gas station attendant, Mr. Mitsuno, went to work and deftly removed the front tire of the trusty mamachari bike. And lo, the bike fit within the confines of her trunk. But what about me? How would I get back home?

Double lo, I also fit within the confines of her trunk!

And so we celebrated with the washing of our dirt-covered hands and the eating of local tempura-don.

Goodbye, bike! You were one of the great ones.

Poisonous Centipedes Dream of Electric Sheep

Centipede Celebrates Independence Day; Dies

The weather can't seem to make up its mind. Sometimes it's sunny and warm, and more often it's rainy and very humid outside. Usually they call this 梅雨 (tsuyu) or "rainy season". Ian always says that Japan can't have both "four seasons" and a "rainy season". Someone's lying somewhere I guess! In any case, rainy season is usually over by the first few days of July from what I remember, but it doesn't seem to want to leave this time.

I went to a 4th of July BBQ hosted by Natanya's English conversation group ladies in Kumihama. The weather wasn't exactly BBQ-esque -- it was misty with on and off drizzling. However, the BBQ was a lot of fun! They prepared meat, fish, vegetables, and squid. Yum! Not to mention that Rachel2 and Greg came up from the city/Yagi to come celebrate Americamas™! Thanks to the rain, nobody got bug-bitten or sunburned.

Afterwards we went to Natanya's house to sleep and have dinner. We clonked out pretty early (around 1 or 2am) and slept through the snores, murmurs and heat. And by, "we slept", I mean everybody made a lot of noise in their sleep while I prayed for dawn.

The next morning, I got up from underneath my desk bright and early, packed up my blankets and put my things in my car. After awhile, Kate, R2 and Greg also woke up and joined me in the kitchen for general sitting around and yawning. Natanya woke up last, and with a blood-curdling scream.

"MUKADE ON MY CEILING! IT'S ON MY CEEILIIIIING".

The rest of us ran to see, and sure enough there was an 8-inch, crimson, poisonous centipede crawling along the crevice connecting Natanya's bedroom wall to her ceiling. About 5 feet above where I was sleeping 30 minutes previous. Shudder.

"Natanya, calm down and get your mukade spray."
"It's HUGE."
"Yes! You're not wrong. But you need to get your mukade spray now."
"OK."

Natanya then handed me cockroach spray. It was worth a shot.

So I sprayed the mukade, causing it to fall with a loud 'thwup' onto her bedroom tatami floor. It started chasing me because I was spraying it with poison (poison that wasn't doing a lot!) This was when I called for backup.

"Natanya! GET THE SHOE! GET THE SHOE AND KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!!!! NOOOOOWWWW! DON'T CHASE MEEEEEEE!!!!"

Natanya pummeled that centipede with her hiking boot six times before it stopped moving. Six! After the hard part was over, it was time to extract the crushed, poisonous mukade from the floor and throw it in a bag... but mukade are really disgusting to look at, so this was harder than we'd thought. First I put on rubber gloves and got tin foil to pick it up and throw it in a garbage bag. The adrenaline from moments ago had me shaking, and I wasn't able to hold my hand still enough to pick it up. So, Natanya tried while I held teh garbage bag. The mukade's head then twitched and we shrieked like banshees.

"HOW is it still ALIVE?!?!?!"

Eventually we had Greg "Hero of Our Times" Khezrnejat come and pick up the mukade, wrap it in newspaper, and throw it in the garbage bag. Success!

There wasn't much to do afterwards except eat toast in silence and every so often make a comment about how big centipedes in Japan can be. Natanya's feelings of deep regret for not re-contracting or staying in Kaya longer rapidly dissipated. I thinks he's happier to go home now.

Natanya: "I want to go home now."
Kate: "This is my impression of Golem doing Disco"

Later on, I drove home and Kate joined me at the Honjo beach for some sun in the afternoon. We talked about leaving and what we want to do next. Nobody knows the answer to that question, no matter how many times it's asked. What I do know is that I'm moving away from the hills filled with poisonous giant centipedes and back to a country full of gnats, small spiders, and the occasional housefly. Because I am an American, and that's the sort of insect my emotional capabilities can properly handle.

Going Back (Thursday, June 18)

Michele and Zaydeh picked me up not long after and I spent the day being exhausted with Oren and Michele and Mo (my cousin). They took me out to dinner and I met their nice friends Ed and Marsha and ate a hamburger and wished my life were better. That night I sat in a king size bed and watched ABC programming until I passed out in front of the TV – waking up just in time to run to the airport for my guaranteed flight.

I flew from Seattle to Vancouver to Tokyo to Osaka that day, but it didn’t feel as long as it was. I watched movies, ate more pizza, and enjoyed the last bits of circulated air conditioning before going back to Japan. Unfortunately I had missed my two days of elementary schooled, leaving me with a lot of guilt and a completely screwed up school schedule. It would have to wait.
From Osaka, I managed to catch the last trains up to Tango and to Natanya’s area. I didn’t have the energy left to drive home, so I slept on her floor and didn’t wake up for 13 hours.

I spent the weekend in my house catching up on laundry because the weather was hot and sunny for the first time in weeks. I spent some time with Natanya and Kate, but left their company early on Sunday to go home and feel miserable.

When it comes to the condo and owing money undeservedly, it could be the end of the world if I let it. But I won’t. I can deal with those things because they don’t matter. But not having my grandmother still weighs heavily on me, and I feel like there’s nothing to do but let it crush me until … until it doesn’t, I guess. I’m sad most of the time, but I know it’s going to get better. And I know that my next trip to Seattle will be one way, and under better circumstances. At least I hope so.

I Hate Delta

I spent 21 hours at Sea-Tac Airport before I gave up on Delta Airlines completely. I was still flying on Kevin’s buddy pass and was optimistic about hopping a flight back to Atlanta so I could fly business class back to sweet Tokyo and get home in time to teach two days of elementary school.
Delta overbooked every single flight that week by at least 3-10 people. The people who gave up their seats were put at the top of the standby list and moved to the next flight. As were the next group of people, and the next, and the next. This left me eternally at position 24 on the standby list – I never saw the inside of a plane. I slept in the airport, hoping that the early morning flight would be able to take me to Atlanta even though I had already missed my flight to Tokyo. I would have to spend the night in Atlanta and wait for the Friday morning flight back instead. Whatever, I reasoned, I just needed to get out of Seattle.
I spent that night on a bench, freezing and sobbing. I didn’t want to call family to pick me up because I didn’t have the energy to be driven somewhere else, driven back, and have to go through security again. But it felt like I was never going to get out of that terminal, so I didn’t know what else to do.
After finally telling my family that I was stuck at the airport and having the remnants of my optimism completely crushed by the lack of empathy from the staff and the situation itself, my dad helped me buy a new plane ticket with a different airline for the next day. I booked a hotel room and left the airport, having gotten nowhere at all in all that time.

The Rest of It (Saturday June 13-Monday June 15)

I spent the weekend in Seattle after the funeral was over. It was nice spending more time with Megan and seeing Laura’s best friend Graham again. It was also really good to spend a lot of time with Zaydeh, who was taking this worse than anyone.

Zaydeh seems so forlorn without Bubbeh around. He’s just about deaf and he’s been that way since I can remember, but without my grandmother around the house he’s having a lot of trouble hearing the phone or doorbell ring.

He took us to see the apartment they had put a payment on in a brand new, very nice retirement community near Seattle Center. It was one of the nicest apartments I’ve ever seen, but knowing it would just be Zaydeh in it, it was too big. He thought so too, and has since canceled his lease on it and is planning to move into a smaller apartment at some point, but not soon. I felt better knowing that Zaydeh would be staying in their condo with all of his things, and walking up to Pike Place Market every morning for fruits and coffee. This, however, meant that Megan and I would not be moving into the condo in July after all. This too was fairly crushing news.

The condo was never ours, and we had done nothing to earn it, but it was the one thing that was fairly solid about my move back to the US. Having a place to live immediately – finding a job and applying to grad schools would come afterwards. Now I will have to do everything all at once, which is a bit stressful. Still, I suppose I counted a lot of chickens before they’d hatched.

Laura’s friend Graham is doing very well on Capitol Hill. We met him and his girlfriend for breakfast (making me realise that I’ve gone almost 2 years without eating a proper breakfast). Although I’m not nearly as close with Graham as my sister, it will be nice to know someone in the city! Also worth mentioning, his cat Leland is adorable.

I spent an entire day with Megan around her neighbourhood in Queen Anne. It’s a residential area primarily with a lot of cute, small houses. Seattle is not afraid of colours either! Purple houses, pink houses, mint green houses. It was really beautiful. I met her roommates Nick and Jonathan and we watched some TV while I battled off my daily jet lag fatigue.

I ate two slices of pizza (one slice too many) and Megan and I walked around her area and talked about the places we’d like to move into in July. We also talked about the general futility of knowing what we want out of our ‘careers’ and how little furniture we own.

Megan and her roommate, Jonathan.

On the last day in Seattle, my mother and I visited Zaydeh’s. Zaydeh drove Laura to the airport and my mother and I rested in the condo for a bit. I had a phone call from someone I’d never heard of and called her back. It turned out it was a debt collector trying to phone me to tell me that I owe $1400 in membership payments to Bally’s Total Fitness in Los Angeles. A gym membership I had cancelled thirteen months ago. Apparently the contract I had signed was good for 36 months, regardless of cancellation. What a crock. After a good twenty minutes of hyperventilating and talking to one of the ladies at the agency who told me “I could settle at $750”, I decided my life was officially bleak. No grandmother, no place to live, and now I have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a service I did not require nor use. America is awful.

Dejected, I went to the airport with my mom. Her flight was 4 hours earlier than mine but I didn’t want to do anything or talk to anyone, so it seemed like a good place to feel disgruntled until my flights back to Japan. As it turned out, Sea-Tac Airport is the best place to feel disgruntled as I would soon find out flying standby on Delta Airlines.

The Funeral

Dressed in black, we met Zaydeh for breakfast at the hotel. Zaydeh smiled at seeing us in such unusual garb and commented, “Who decided on this colour anyway?” He had a point. I was one of very few people at the actual funeral who were all in black.
Breakfast was awful. I was smiling too much, trying to make everyone feel better. My sister was quiet, my mother was sad, and Zaydeh was distraught. He couldn’t believe he was burying his wife of 64 years – and neither could we. Those two had always been a formidable unit of teasing, cooking, and never-ending affection. The question began to rise in my mind, “What are you supposed to do when your family is broken?”
Sitting between my sister and my eleven-year-old cousin, Mo, I felt ridiculous. “I can’t believe I’m at my grandmother’s funeral. I’ve never been to a funeral and now I’m at her’s! Impossible.” In the past few years all of my four grandparents have been teetering into poorer health, but I never thought that Bubbeh would be the first to go.
My grandmother, being an unwavering defender of the women’s liberation, was honoured by a female canter in a purple suit. The canter, as it turned out, was the first women ever to perform a ceremony in the Orthodox Jewish cemetery where Bubbeh was buried. Breaking the moulds even after life. The canter led us in Yiddish folk songs and in prayers. We followed the pallbearers to the gravesite beneath a magnificent old tree. The tree reminded me so much of Bubbeh, it almost surged with her spirit. I immediately identified it as “The Bubbeh Tree” and I feel confident that it was a place she would have picked out herself, though my grandparents had never reserved their final resting places – optimists well into their mid 80’s. We took turns shoveling earth onto her grave and returned to Elliot Bay for her reception.

At the reception, I felt like I didn’t want to be around people anymore. I had no appetite, though the platters in front of me looked delicious (Bubbeh would not have held back – she was a champion eater). I took a glass of wine and sat out on the steps, looking out at the bay, thinking of how unfair it was for God to take someone we all needed so, so much. Bubbeh said, “God will never let the world end so long as there are ten good people in it.” But with her gone, we’re down to nine.
When I returned to the reception, people had begun telling stories about their times spent with Bubbeh. It was a gift that I was able to remember her through so many different people. She was kind, a good listener, never shied away from making friends with complete strangers, she could out-eat just about anyone, and she never sat down at the dinner table when she was cooking. She truly wanted to know everyone, and she wanted to understand people fully and without judgment. I hope that every one of us was able to take home a part of her spirit and that it makes us all better people in the future.

After everyone went home (“it’s like herding cats!”), I resisted the jet lag induced urge to nap for the next 19 hours and waited for Megan to get off work. Fortunately for me, her office was the next building over from my hotel. It was really nice to see her again – it had been nearly a year since she left Japan! But I was weighed down by grief and exhaustion and I don’t think I expressed my happiness as well as I could have. She took me and Laura out to a great happy hour place where we ate yam fries and tried local beers. It was nice having all of the funeral things over with and being able to relax a little bit, even though we were still very sad. Bubbeh had always known that food could cure just about anything; and I think she and yam fries would have been fast friends.

A Diversion

I thought that my next trip from Japan to the United States would be a one-way ticket representing the end of my JET Programme contract and my time spent in Japan as a teacher. Unfortunately, my first trip back to the US was not under any such circumstances.

My grandmother, known to us as Bubbeh, its Yiddish equivalent, passed away from lung cancer complicated by pneumonia on Sunday, June 7th at a hospital in Stony Brook, Long Island. She and Zaydeh, my grandfather, had once lived in Stony Brook for decades and had long since moved to Seattle to live across from Elliot Bay. The reason for their presence in Long Island was that it was the last spot on their long vacation to visit family and friends all over the world. They flew to Iceland, where they met my parents and explored glaciers and volcanoes. Afterwards, they flew back to London to visit with my parents a bit longer before boarding the Queen Mary and cruising back to New York in style. My grandparents have always been swanky folk. Only a short while after the Queen Mary docked in New York City and Bubbeh had met her older brother for martinis, did she fall ill.

Within 24 hours, friends and loved ones were coming out of the woodworks, racing to say their goodbyes.

I decided to fly back to the US to see my family and to say my goodbyes to Bubbeh, even though they would be a bit late. My schools were characteristically understanding, and they each gave me money for flowers, which they told me is the Japanese custom. I was really touched.
The funeral would be held on that Friday so I left on Thursday afternoon from Tokyo airport. My friend, Kevin, allowed me to use his family’s Delta buddy pass – enabling me a cheap fare from Tokyo to Seattle on standby. The first flight was a breeze – I even got to ride in business class! Unfortunately the flight was from Tokyo all the way to Atlanta, flying directly over Seattle and landing nowhere near it.

At the Atlanta airport I was on a very long list of standbys and was told that, “it didn’t look good.” As I sat, exhausted and unsure of what to do next, I saw my sister standing in line for boarding. Somehow she had found out my flight and booked herself on the same one. In the nick of time, I was put on the flight. It was a miracle. I sat next to an old man who was going to his son’s graduation from the University of Washington. He told me about his ex-wife who was in “lady’s prison” and his fiancée and that he had seen a few UFOs in his time in Georgia. Then he helped me with the in-flight trivia challenge and sure enough, we won a fair few games!

Laura and I met up with Oren and Michele (our uncle and aunt) and waited for my mother at the airport. Only my mother would bring two checked suitcases for a 5-day trip.

We checked into a hotel nearby Zaydeh’s apartment at Elliot Bay. It felt so wonderful to be back, but the reality of the situation was slowly starting to hit and I began to feel numb. Like I was watching myself on a TV screen. This wasn’t my life. The Sreebny women went out for a bowl of clam chowder that evening (at 10pm because the sun never sets in the Pacific Northwest, apparently) and fell asleep at different times, each one of us on our own jet lag.

Oe Yama and The Eight Person Date

Local Teachers Wander into Mist ; Camoflauge

This weekend I was invited by my friend, Yasuka, an employee of the Mineyama Town Hall, to join her in Amino for a konpa, or a group date. From what I understand, a konpa is a group of people (even amounts of single boys and girls) where they get together at a restaurant or bar and get to know one another. So, that’s what we did.

I took the train up to Amino from Mineyama so I would be able to drink (this would help me relax around perfect Japanese strangers). Yasuka brought her co-workers, Yumi and Yumi. The guys were pretty diverse… two of them worked at a bank, one works as a 4th grade teacher in Mineyama, and one was a jerk, though I did not hear what he did for a living.

Mostly the party was fun. We ate a lot of fried chicken and salad and drank a lot of cocktails. The two guys I talked two (and had to sit next to) were nice enough. Though, one of them smoked cigarettes into my hair all evening. Considering it was in Japanese, I think I held my own. Though there were times I had no idea what was going on and the jerk guy kept making fun of me in front of me, which wasn’t cool.

Four hours later we were all quite intoxicated. Kate and Natanya, champions of love and friendship, came to pick me up. After that I told ridiculous stories and passed out watching Gone with the Wind.

The next morning, after Kate made us eggs and told us that she did the dishes every morning because if she is ever found dead before she can get to them, she thinks people will judge her. Even though she’s dead!

We drove in the rain and mist to Oe Yama in Kaya and hiked up a good deal of it. The mist made the walk very interesting and we took a lot of fun pictures!

This Place is Death

We ended the day at Apple Farm with curry and sandwiches. We also talked about Octomom and how many children a crazy person should be allowed to pump into herself. Ridiculous. I made many poor arguments.

Then I came home and found out that my grandmother is most likely going to die, so that’s probably going to change the course of this week. Flying 7000 miles home when I’m leaving in less than 7 weeks for good? Absurd timing.

Track & Field Day

Track & Field Day

Every year the four junior high schools in the area, Honjo, Ine, Hioki and Yoro, battle it out in track and field competition. This year we gathered early in the morning (in the rain) for the 競技会, or kyogikai. It was raining fairly consistently, so there were tarps and tents set up to shelter our bags and bodies. However, the rain collected on the tents and would spill down at random intervals, soaking everything and everyone in its path.
Aside from that, the day was good in that I got out of the office! I also had an opportunity to see Mrs. Aimi, my JTE from last year. She told me that she’s very happy at her new school (Hioki) because the class sizes are tiny (the school population is 15) and she is much closer to home than she was working at Ine JHS. I was really thrilled to see that she’s enjoying her new job and that she’s doing well. This will probably be the last time I see her before leaving.

As always, the relay races were among the more exciting activities of the day. The students work really hard for about a month practicing their sprints and passing the baton to their friends.

In the end (as always), the biggest school took home first prize. Once again Ine JHS will house the trophy. It must seem unfair… the points seemed to correlate directly with the size of the school. Ine taking first place in most everything, followed by Yoro, Honjo and finally Hioko. Seems a bit less exciting when the same school always wins. Nonetheless, everyone really tried their best and we were all thrilled to go home out of the rain.

Dust in the Wind, the Karaoke Story

Weather Crummy; Disappointed Females Trek to City

This weekend, due to crummy Tango weather and family duties, Natanya, Kate and I decided to take a literal rain check on our hike. Instead, Natanya and I drove down to Kameoka so we could head into Kyoto and play!

The morning started as crummy as the weather. I thought the elementary school next door told me that I could bring my recyclable cardboard (or cardboard boxes I've had since July 2007...) to the school between 7:30 and 10:30. So I showed up around 10 and one of the teachers/caretakers was there and he said, "Haha, they've gone home already." THANKS. So, stuck with cardboard, I said farewell to Kirby and drove South to Kaya. Natanya had plenty of cardboard waste too, so we placed it surreptitiously in the parking lot of a convenience store. Apologies to the 7-11 employees on Rt. 176.

Once in Kameoka, we snagged a free spot at the station and walked over to Laurel's apartment to meet her new friend, Kuma. I never knew rabbits had so much personality! This little boy or girl (we just don't know how to find out) thumped his feet when vexed, nibbled at our socks, and let us cuddle him as only a kind and thoughtful rabbit might. Meanwhile Margaret was wandering around muttering something about boys and dates... but... bunny... d'awwwwwwww.

Continuing on our day of planned fun-things, we took the train into Nijo to do some quickie purikura at the arcade and to see Star Trek with Greg, Ian, and Masahiro. Hooray for student prices and employees who believe that we are foreign exchange students! I don't think I'll be able to get away with that for too much longer... they might start to wonder once I'm 30.

Star Trek was vastly entertaining and the beers we all got helped our viewing pleasure go to where no man has gone before. Or something witty.

After that, people wanted food so we ate some kaiten sushi nearby, but this sadly cut the night short as people had last trains to worry about. So, all but me, Ian and Natanya went on in search of karaoke and more beer. We met up with Lauren, who changed her mind and went home.

Ian, Natanya and I ended up doing karaoke at two locations due to the waiting list at the first place. We are superstars, no lie. Natanya and Ian sang a 35 minute ballad by Bob Dylan while I weighed the options of eating my pastries now, or later. I chose later, and then tried to sing Kate Bush. Oof.

Somehow we ended up at Radio Clash around 2am and chatted, made paper cranes, and I texted everyone I knew that, simply, "I LOVE YOU." This was well received, and it's all true!

Around 3am, we poured ourselves into Ian's apartment and slept until the voices of children woke us up at 8am.

I have no explanation for this, other than it exists and I saw it.

So! Karaoke, sushi, movie, friends, and bunny all add up to one final note: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Driving home was relaxed this afternoon... Natanya and I listened to podcasts and sipped water and watched the scenery turn from sunny to cloudy to drizzly. We were home! When I got back to my apartment complex, I had to wait a bit longer to get inside because three monkeys were playing in front of my doorstep! Blagh! Deftly (and after 15 minutes) I trundled my car slowly up the path, chasing them back into the jungle. As I carried my groceries inside, they glared at me from trees. Eep.

A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu

A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu
May 23 & 24 2009

I’ve been packing boxes early in order to beat the heat that will soon be here and inescapable. Another reason for getting my personal belongings out of the house and onto freighters is that I am trying to slowly adjust to the idea that in about 2 months, I will not longer be in Tango. The thought of waking up to an empty house breaks my heart. I am also finding a new home for Kirby, my loyal and charming pet ferret, as a result of plane regulations not allowing ferrets in the cabins nor in the baggage areas. After so many weeks of researching customs and quarantine regulations, I have to give up my pet because an airline doesn’t consider Kirby to be feline or canine enough to go on an airplane. It’s been really exhausting (somewhere between the guilt of not being able to take him back, and the stress of finding him a good new home).

So it was a relief and a delight that Natanya and Kate came up for a rather impromptu sleepover this Saturday evening. Natanya had come with her English conversation friends, Keiko and Mieko (there are no two finer women on this peninsula). They brought with them strawberries, sugar peas and regular peas – all from Mieko’s garden. I blushed like the baby Jesus in his hay-crib.

We had coffee and strawberries and walked over to Urashima-jinja Park for a bite to eat. Three of us had tempura udon and Keiko ordered the “famous” soba. It’s famous because the town makes it.

Afterwards we took the Ine boathouse ferryboat around the bay and fed the seagulls, and the hawks that decided to trail nonchalantly, floating over our wake.

Hawks love crunchy snacks, as proven by this terrible photograph.
I do love my boat-houses. A student once wrote "funaya are where people put boats". Deep thoughts, deep thoughts.
The loneliest island.

Soon after Mieko and Keiko left Ine and Natanya and I decided to try our luck at making a tofu pudding recipe she found on the New York Times website. However when it’s cooking with Rachel & Natanya, it’s certainly not cooking with directions. The pudding turned out more or less “OK”.

Honjo at dusk. Now that it's not freezing, we can go outside and enjoy it.

The elusive floating island. It may or may not be in the sky.

Kate drove up and we went for a walk to catch up on gossip and talk about our weeks. It was nice getting some movement into my otherwise immobile daily routine [drive to work, sit at work, drive home, sit at home]. Afterwards we made mabudofu and had dinner together while watching too many episodes of America’s Next Top Model. This preceded Ever After, one of the silliest movies I’ve ever seen. Drew Barrymore, you ridiculous woman.

It was really nice just having Natanya and Kate around, and not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary. Just being normal with normal people. The weather was fairly cooperative too, but by no means sunny. It seems May is being stubbornly unseasonable this year.

After a nice night’s sleep, Kate cleaned my entire house because she was ignoring her oncoming asthma attack and then Natanya cooked eggs for breakfast! Then we decided to head to Mineyama for some fun-times™ at MINE, the mall there. We took some pretty excellent purikura and bought some things from the 100 yen store (especially Kate, who spends 90% of her paycheck on knick knacks for friends back home). After a donut and a run-in with Brynmor Thomas (gasp!) we went to kappa zushi for a late lunch and then I dropped Natanya off at home.

It was simple, girly, and covered in stickers. (pictures to come when I am less lazy)

WE CAN'T KEEP THIS SECRET ANY LONGER!

Because the World Needs to Know:

We've all seen the news, and I'm not going to sugarcoat the situation. Hundreds of millions dead in Osaka, the unlucky survivors quickly turning to cannibalism. Hyogo has literally detached from the archipelago and sunk into the ocean. And now, we're hearing that someone's been infected in Shiga. We are surrounded, and all the masks and vigorous gargling in the world can't save us now.
~Gregory Q. Khezrnejat

I think Greg's e-mail about swine flu in Japan really says it all. After being asked for about 21 days striaght if "I felt OK", I think I can safely say that I do not have swine flu. I am however selfishly hoping that enough students get it that we can not go to school for a week. I could use the time to write down the reasons I still think of the Japanese people as 'sensible individuals who will not be convinced of the end of days by a kid with a cold in Kobe".

In other news I've sent 6 boxes back to the states. All of the boxes are sick with swine flu.

A Weekend with Goats

A Weekend with Goats

Two weekends ago, the first weekend after Golden Week where everybody was back from vacation and all in the same place again, Natanya invited everyone she knew to her house for a party. This was a veiled excuse to play “Celebrities”, our favourite game combining charades, gestures, and taboo. It also generally involves ridiculous people such as Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Gandhi, Miss Piggy, Tyra Banks, Ahmadinejad, various New York Times columnists (naturally I don’t remember their names, out of apathy) and of course, Zac Efron.

However, most of the invited were unable to acquiesce this kind invitation, and so the group became four people; Natanya, Kate, Ian, Rachel and the Other Rachel (hereby referred to as R2).

The weekend began at an empty train station in Amanohashidate (the station that seems to evade nicknamery) as Natanya and I shared stories of our sunburns and ate chocolate from Hokkaido. Ian and R2 arrived promptly 3 minutes late, and we drove to Sutenten, an izakaya [food-place] in Iwataki. This was the first of many meals where I proceeded to watch other people drink, as I was the driver. We then retired to Ine for an evening of beer and Pringles, all while sitting on the kitchen floor. Ian was reunited with Kirby the Ferret and all was calm.

Home-made mudslides... smell like vodka

The next day, after a leisurely French toast breakfast, we drove onto Otoko-yama, the nearby mountain that separates Ine and Yasaka. The drive was nice, though the sky threatened rain throughout the day. Near the top of the mountain (where the wind turbines live), there is a farm called Ikari Highlands Ranch (碇高原牧場) and we stopped there to watch sheep, goats, cows and rabbits frolic on the strangely rolling hills. I bumped into the Head of the Board of Education and met his lovely wife and adorable toddler grandchildren.

Two girls a'mooing and an Ian in a Pear Tree.

I recommended the adjoining steakhouse, where we went for a late lunch. The corn was spectacular.

Goats play upon a bench.

It was time to leave and drive to Mineyama to meet Kate, who had invited me to dinner. I was going to drop Natanya, Ian and R2 off at Natanya’s house in Kaya and then drive back to Mineyama to do dinner further north in Kumihama with two of Kate’s co-workers. However, my cunning sense of map-reading and direction failed us all and we ended up on the narrowest jungle roads in some town I’d never heard of.

Terribly, terribly lost.

Driving down the mountain, I expected to reach Yasaka, but instead we ended up too close to the Sea of Japan and had to backtrack and head North, and THEN go to Mineyama. In a nutshell, there was no way we were going to reach Kaya. I convinced the group that we should all go to dinner together, which is what we did.

I had never been to the Bay Cook restaurant that overlooks the Kumihama Bay (and all of the large fish within). We had to sit separately due to lack of reservations, but everybody had a good time eating the pizzas and pasta dishes and watching the sky grow darker.

Everyone spent the night at Natanya’s. It wasn’t the most energetic or interesting night of anyone’s life, I don’t think, but it was certainly nice to spend time together in a non-wintry environment. I went to bed early, when Ian started reading aloud passages by David Foster Wallace, another name I’ve come to know, and hate.