Weekend with my Japanese Homies

When asked what my weekend plans were, I replied, "I am eating. With Japanese girls."

Essentially that was precisely what I did this past Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, I braved my slight cold (read: I had no ability to breathe) to meet Yumi and Scott and the Honeycomb coffee shop. This is a coffee shop with cute cakes, derricious coffee beverages, and some attractive waitresses! If only I swung that way. But I'm not into waitresses.

Yumi, I should add, wanted to go back there about five times during the day. I blame LIZ for this, as she introduced me to it awhile back and I have been addicted ever since. The addiction has now been passed on.

After coffee, the three of us went to meet Miss Yuuki Shibayama for some Sushi Ro------- in Oyima. The sushi was good, but my sickness prevented me from eating a disgusting amount, as I usually do. Alas.

We ditched Scott afterwards and Yuuki drove us to a Jersey Cow dairy farm in Kumihama! They had baby cows in one pen and HUUUUUGE Jersey dairy cows in the barn. They were HUGE! I don't know why they seemed so big... either Jersey Cows are humongous or I haven't ever actually seen a cow before and I forgot. Anyway, the point is we tried salt ice cream and it was gross. So we revived our taste buds by eating blueberry yogurt ice cream was what soooo good.

After a quick glimpse of the Kumihama vegetable market and a very detailed discussion on sweet potatoes, we went back to the Mineyama area, stalked Liz from place to place, and bought me a shiny maroon bicycle! It's being delivered on Monday after school (in theory). Hooray transportation that isn't my car! Not that I have anywhere in biking distance I can go to, but damnit it's the principle of the thing.

After wandering around Mine and looking at ugly ugly shoes, we went to Seiryuu (a Japanese tavern by the train station). Yumi and Yuuki's stomachs were bottomless pits. I was thoroughly showed up by their crazy hunger.

The next day was meant to be taking Kirby-kun to the vet. However, the friendly vet said that he didn't actually know anything about ferrets and recommended a farther away different ferret-affiliated veterinarian. We did not go all the way to Fukuichiyama, however. Instead, we dropped Kirby off in Ine and drove even FARTHER and close to (in?) Fukui Prefecture. The goal, you see, was a road trip to Obama. Obama, through the ridiculousness of the Japanese kanji system, means "small beach". The name could easily be pronounced "kohama", but fortunately for my obsession with novelty, it is pronounced like our dreamy possibly presidential candidate. You know, the black one.

Obama has two mermaid statues, a public restroom, and a train station. We found no statues of Barak Obama, no ridiculous Obama-shaped cakes, and no shirts with Engrish pronouncing undying fidelity to the strange, American politician. It was sad. We DID however, find an excellent onsen! Yumi and I got nekkid and enjoyed the seaweed, vitamin, and freakishly hot baths in the onsen, drank lots of water, and hopped back in the car!

I should add that on the way to Obama (small beach), we passed Nagahama (long beach), Takahama (high beach), and Oohama (big beach).

We met Marina and Scotty at Karachi (the Indian/Pakistani curry shop in Maizuru). Quick fact about Maizuru, it means, "dancing stork". YAY! 舞鶴. Curry, as always, was magnificent.

Then it was moooore driving! Dropped Yumi off, went home, and realized that my glasses are still so broken and I have to wear contacts until I figure out how to procure more eye wear. Crap.

Weekend of anti-anti-socialness

Weekend was more social than expected.

On Saturday I joined a few Tango people for dinner. Due to feelings that I might have to detach a lot of people from my life in order to be happy/make new friends/keep other friends, I had stopped hanging out with a few of them. However, after some self-evaluation, I decided I didn't like that about myself at all, and tried to reconnect with said people. Not be their best friends, not even be good friends, but be an acquaintance. Nobody's really that awful anyway.

That said, on Saturday I met Marina, Desirae, Andy, Eric, Yuumi, Jarrad and Scott at Mipple for dinner at the little restaurant we always go to on the fourth floor. We had lots of delicious food for not very much money and followed it up with ice cream next door at 'pier jolly', as I discovered it is called.

Afterwards, we drove to Nodagawa to get some karaoke time in. We sang for HOURS. I didn't realize how late it was until one person started throwing up from too much whiskey and my voice was about as useful as said puking person's coordination. Andy and I did a mean nirvana duet complete with headbanging/hoarse screaming! And Desirae and I rocked out to some Alanis Morisette as well, which was the end of my voice. Everyone was really drunk except for the drivers/devoted girlfriends of drunken louts. We played in the snow a little bit too

I drove Desi and Andy back to their home and decided to stay there for the night since the snow might make it problematic to get back to Ine (over an hour away) at 2 in the morning. So, the next morning I set off home to feed Kirby and change clothes and then set BACK off to Mineyama to meet Liz for lunch.

I hadn't seen Liz in ages, so it was nice catching up with her even though neither of us had too much to talk about! We ate a lot of sushi (as to say, I ate a lot of sushi) and then went for coffee at a cute little cafe called 'Honeycomb'. Liz got a very nice looking cake!

Together we set off for an IYP event (IYP stands for something official that I cannot remember). We made moss-balls! So, we took potted flowers and ivy/dragon's mustache (yay!) and shaped the soil into a ball, covered it with soft, damp moss and tied green string around it to make it stay. Voila! Moss and ball, together at last.

Granted, they were really pretty! Mine is set up by my kitchen window now, which gives my kitchen the effect of looking non-horrible! (This is always a plus).

That's the gist of the weekend, anyway. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I find my picture adapter thingie.

Rachel

Elementary School, the Next Day

Elementary school was not as horrible as I expected it to be. The kids were lovely as always, and lending my camera to the first and second graders ended up being a delightful mistake. I now have a great deal of adorable pictures of the kids I hold in very high/cutecutecute regards. Now I can show the world! Other than that, it was my last day at elementary school until mid-January, so I will miss those kids dearly and I’ll just have to wave at them when I see them playing on the side of the road.

My good day was somewhat rushed to a halt as I quickly packed and headed to Mineyama to stay with Desirae and Andy before going to Wakayama the next day. I met up with Scotty K. and Leigh-J for some sushi and it was actually great seeing Scott again since I hadn’t seen that kid in forever and a half! We chatted for quite some time, I ate pudding, and then Leigh and I went to hang out with Andirae in Mineyama for a bit. Desi was a bit LUSHY that evening and it was really amusing to watch. Leigh left and I had some champagne before going to sleep for not long enough.

Kyoto Conference & the long way home

The Kyoto Conference

Not too much to go into about the conference this year. My JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) was Aimi Sensei, and I finally found out that her first name is Ayako. Nice name! So we had fun learning new ideas for activities and realizing how awesome we are in general. I never realized how lucky I had it being at a small school with only two JTEs and generally lax lesson planning restrictions. I’m sort of living it up, as it turns out! No wonder I’m not unhappy at work!

Other than that, we got to see some riveting workshops run by fellow JETs, most of whom I am acquaintances with to say the least. I won’t go into Lyle’s, but his was definitely the most memorable. Other than that, Raymond and Audrey gave very good workshops as well, and all of the moderators were outstanding, in their own way. Keeping time and all. Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it!

We also had an interesting guest speaker. She’s a translator (native Japanese) in her 50’s who discussed the growing social crises in Japan along the lines of drop in birthrate, marriage, etc. She was interesting because she kept trying to denounce the fact that she was any sort of ‘militarist feminist’, although clearly she has some sort of faith in women in the workplace, as she is a notable example of one such lady. Ah well, Japanese. They even contradict their own facts. I was sort of hoping Godzilla would give a speech, but he got stuck in traffic or something. Alas.

After the work, I went and played with a number of JETs. The first evening I hung out with Amy, Lauren and Greg and we went to get okonomiyaki, which is a sort of egg pancake with meets and cabbage and veggies that really hit the spot. Having a beer with dinner was a real treat too, as I had nowhere to drive for a change. Afterwards, Amy and I wandered around Kyoto station mall (the one underground) and had some frappucinos and Christmas drinks at ye olde Starbucks. We wandered for a bit and met up with Rae, the kumihama JET, and chatted about the more interesting parts of the conference. Amy and I then hopped a train back to Kameoka (where I was staying with CIR Megan B.) and found ourselves to Megan’s apartment. We then met up with the fabulous Oirish John B. and scuttled off into the cold night for some karaoke, which was wonderful! I can tell you right now, those three Kameoka JETs are some damn good people to do karaoke with!

The next evening I stayed with Leigh and Simon (who were my carpool back to the Tango Penninsula). We went to dinner at Café Independence, which is a nice place with good wine in the Sanjo area (cool area of downtown Kyoto). After chatting a bit with the city kids, we left pretty late to get back home. The car ride home was interesting. First, all three of us managed to miss our turn completely and we ended up fairly lost in Hyogo prefecture, which is not at all where we live! Thanks to the help of the stealthy Rae, we found our way back only to realize we BASICALLY had no gas in the car. We may look like grown ups, but I assure you it is not the reality of our situation. We managed to ‘ganbatte’ all the way to Mineyama where we stocked up on some badly needed gas and get home to Leigh’s house in Yasaka. Unfortunately for me, Yasaka is still 45 minutes away from where I live in Ine. So I hopped in my car and began the trek homeward.

The Detour of Terror

There was a detour on a main stretch of coastal highway that leads directly to my town. I was hesitant to take it, but I also really wanted to go home and sleep. I was beginning to feel so tired that my eyes were shaking in my skull. It was as much fun as it sounds. The road was going the same direction as the adjacent highway, although it was winding considerably through some mountains, and dark only became darker once I entered some very thick woods. Every 5 miles or so, I’d see a construction man waving me in some strange direction, further on this detour which I was convinced would see me straight to my terrifying demise. Mind you, this is around 1am, why are there even construction men hiding in a forest at 1am? Farther into the forest I crept, my car doing its best to putter along at 15mph (maybe 30km/h). The farther in I went, the more tanuki corpses I began to see.
Now, this may sound ridiculous, but I had NO idea tanuki were real animals. I thought they were mythical or extinct animals only seen in Japanese folktales and temples. So, when I saw a dead one sprawled in front of me, jaws ajar, eyes glinting a menacing green, you can imagine my surprise (read; complete terror). As many JETs have already heard me say, it was like seeing a dead unicorn in the middle of the road. I had nooo idea what the animal was. A coyote? A mutated raccoon the size of a golden retriever? It finally hit me as soon as I’d passed the third road corpse that it was in fact, a tanuki. The more you know. Anyway I eventually did make it out of the detour forest and home, and collapsed in my bed around 2am, not at all ready for my Friday at elementary school.

Sub par chocolate covered bananas. Oh, and fireworks.

I drove down to Amino this afternoon to have lunch with Shinobu, a friend of Liz'. She had a 'thank you' sort of luncheon for the people who had helped out for the Halloween party a few weeks back (the one for elementary schoolers), however I was the only person of that group who was able to attend. Besides me, Liz, Leigh and Jannie came and we were joined by Shinobu, her friends (both Yuko's) and Yuko B's two young children (Chika and Ryouji, who were adorable).

The lunch spread was amazing. I think we ate for about two-three hours straight. I should also mention that Shinobu's house is gorgeous. It's a Japanese-style place, all one floor and connecting through paper walls that slide. Kotatsu tables, magnificent garden outside (filled with trees, ponds, flowers etc) and beautiful art and decorations to match. Really lovely environment!

After lunch I dropped by shimamura with Jannie so we could pick up some clothing items. I'm wearing the slipper socks I bought... they were a good purchase for SURE. My feet have been having trouble staying warm lately. These will help out a great deal.

We then met up with Marina, Amy (Marina's friend from Fukuchiyama), Bryn, Simon, Lyle and Scott and watched the fireworks at the Iwataki side of Amanohashidate. It wasn't too cold today, so the viewing was entirely pleasant! We also had sub par chocolate covered bananas, which didn't taste of chocolate or banana, in my opinion.

Now it's home to finish out the weekend with a tuna fish sandwich and a glass of milk.

I might get my car looked at tomorrow morning before school if I can manage to wake up early enough. Ha!

Obon in Miyazu. Limited Casualties.

Obon : The Buddhist Dio de los Muertos

Last night I went to Miyazu City to take part in the celebration for Obon. Obon is a Buddhist holiday celebrating the ancestors, and its the day of the dead. Ghosts and zombies and all that. Well, maybe not zombies.

So I went over to Jarrad's home which is among some rice fields in the city (because even decent sized cities still have weird rice fields and ditches). His home is small, but very cozy and he actually has some furniture which I find amazing. We practiced flashcards while waiting for Scott and Liz to show up from Omiya (a tiny bit west from the area). They got stuck in traffic (as did I, I spent about 80 minutes driving straight from work to Miyazu in fact!) but they eventually made it.

From Jarrad's we all walked to the big department store, Mipple. It was packed! Everyone had gathered there to watch the lanterns and boats and fireworks. We eventually found our friends in the crowd and sat down. Yumi was there with her friend Jun, who is hilarious and brought sesame balls filled with delicious things. Marina was also there (the girl from LA) as well as Bryn (a kiwi who has been in his city of Iwataki for going on 4 years now) and Jannie (an Aussie who is on her 3rd year in Kaya). The boys went off to find food in the kiosks (a lot of ice creams, sodas, crêpes, and really greasy chicken) while the ladies went to look at the bay. Amanohashidate, the bay in Miyazu, is totally gorgeous all the time. But for Obon there were tons of little floating paper lanterns with candles in the bay, to represent ancestors I guess, and a lot of strange very "oriental" looking boats floating in the bay as well. They had lanterns and fires all over, some of them were manned some not. It was a strange thing to see, and the reds and oranges were really beautiful against the dusky blue background. As the sun disappeared, we went back to our tarp to watch the fireworks.

Fireworks in Japanese is "hanabi" which means "fire flower". I think that makes a lot more sense than firework. A work of... fire? I don't pretend to understand English. I only teach it.
The fireworks were amazing. They weren't like American ones where it's about a 15-20 minute show. Instead, they had 30 second, 2 minute displays, all of them different and sponsored by different companies. After the first would end, they would play a musical interlude while the sky cleared of smoke, and then would start the next display. It was very organized, and I saw some fireworks I had never seen before. The shape of a cat face, or a flower, or a smiley face, or a heart. Things like that, it was really neat! Some of the fireworks looked bigger and more glorious than I imagined they would. I think maybe I am not used to seeing fireworks so close up, or maybe it was the reflection off the water that made it seem grander? I don't know. Anyway the displays went on for about an hour. During this time, we decided to teach Yumi some American slang/Ebonics. So if you see a tall Japanese girl saying "what up, shorty?" ... we are to blame.

Afterwards, we all gathered around a big sort of wooden stand with speakers. A lot of people at the gathering were in yukata, which is summer-time clothing. Not to be confused with kimono, which are more of a winter wear (and more formal, I think). Anyway there were people of all ages wearing them, and man did they look pretty. The little girls especially looked as pretty as could be, and the older women in their patterned yukata and sandals looked like they were in a picture book. Everyone looked like paper.

The dancing began! Elderly women in the big wooden stand began to sing traditional songs about Miyazu and Amanohashidate while men played taiko drums and some other instruments I don't know the names of. It was really spectacular! Many of the people in yukata began to dance in a circle going clockwise, and many people without yukata joined in (including quite a few from our group). The dance steps were easy, but I could tell by seeing the older women do them that they took years of practice to perfect the grace and the balance of the dance. After the first "number", they played a few more songs, but always repeating them. It went on for quite sometime! I even joined in one of the dances, the easy one, with some other JETs. This older lady in front of us in a yukata was helping us learn the steps, and I had more fun watching her than I did actually doing the dance. It was like tai chi... and very much like tai chi, my balance always ends up on the wrong foot. Always. There were a few young men in the group adding their own sort of spice to the dance, and one of them came over to Marina and said, "shall we dance!" She couldn't say no. Liz and I decided to dosie-do instead, which was fun.

Afterwards, we went for a long walk to avoid traffic (we weren't in a hurry to go home anyway). We went to find cheap vending machines and got some drinks (tea for me, and "sweet kiss" soda for the others, which is basically mountain dew). We also spotted some little frogs along the way, and some big spiders.

Then it was back home, and a very long boring drive. Driving past the sea at night scares me, I feel like I could fall off the edge of the world into outer space if I make a wrong turn. But I didn't, and I got home, and I feel asleep almost immediately.

Weekend/fun had by many

Two Cars, Nine Foreigners, One Beach

This weekend was wonderful! On Saturday I cleaned my entire house... mostly. It was about 96º outside, so I took constant tea and coffee and ice cream breaks, watched a movie in the middle of the day, and spent most of the time reconfiguring the futon business and putting away the leftover blankets in the tatami bedroom closets. So now everything that was out is put away, which is awesome.

I also sorted all my gross trash and I can't wait until Tuesday when I can put out all my old food garbage, ugh its really beginning to smell funky! Blegh.

Sunday was a more eventful day, as I had nine people come over so we could all go to my nearby beach in Honjo, aptly named Honjo Beach. I drove down to Miyazu city, which is about a 50 minute drive, and picked up three ladies at the train station (Marina, Amy and Paulette). Marina is from LA and she is a hilarious tiny tiny Ukranian girl who lives in Fukuchiyama (which is a bit of a hike by train to Miyazu). Amy deLong is from Kentucky hilarious behind her freckled, quiet exterior. And Miss Paulette, who is an awesome theatre junkie from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is very boisterous.

From the train station I drove us to Mipple, which is a big lame department store on the bay in Miyazu. There we met Jarrad, a 31-year old ex lawyer from Tacoma. He looks like he’s about 24 years old. He told us that everyone he meets thinks he is a nice Jewish boy because he has a sweet face and glasses and a beard and he's a soft spoken lawyer. There are worse things to be mistaken as, I guess!

We also met up with Yumi, my favorite Japanese person. She is a 25 year old student who lives in Miyazu and likes to tag along on JET outings. Her English is flawless and she asks great questions, such as "what is crazy sex?" Or "do you think Lucy Liu is beautiful? Japanese people don't." Her mom of all people dropped her off, which I guess isn't extremely embarrassing in Japan (nerdy things tend to not be nerdy here, I have noticed). Grown men in Hello Kitty slippers? HELL yeah.

We then went inside Mipple and grabbed some food, since everyone wanted lunch. I personally was dying to go to a restaurant, but nobody else wanted to. I guess they all have restaurants in their towns so they didn't find the idea nearly as exciting. So we bought bentos and onigiri (the rice balls of deliciousness). The coolest thing I discovered, other than the pikachu ride in the upstairs arcade, was a cooler of green tea cans. I reached in to grab a can of ice cold green tea for the hot day and then realized the can was HOT. It was a cooler of hot drinks! Technology! The rest of the JETs started touching all the cans and yelling "its hot!" I then realized we must have looked insane to everyone else in the store. Stupid gaijins.

In Mipple, we met up with the last three JETs, Desirae (Kentucky fried Sweetheart), Scott (our South African resident/former film student), and new JET from Maryland, Liz! Liz is 100% Maryland. She came in with her dark blue regatta sports t-shirt, jean shorts, flip flops and dark blue visor, complete with freckles and a runner's ponytail. She is also a huge Harry Potter fan, so the conversation flowed like buttah.

The crew drove out to Ine in two cars: my little kei-car and Scott's white plated, normal-sized car. It was a long trek, and very warm, but we finally made it to my house! Everyone oohd and aahd at the size of my "mansion" and we ate snacks and put on sun screen. Then we grabbed the beer and food and went to the beach. The beach by my house is AWESOME. The water is mostly warm (but not too warm), there are no waves, no sticky sand, and no pointy things in the water. It's the perfect relaxation beach. We grabbed some inner tubes and hung out in the ocean for hours. It was delightful. Desirae brought her snorkel mask and kept finding us starfish! A few of us got nibbled on by a curious little crab (I am convinced it was the same crab every time) and we saw quite a few fishes. It was pretty much the best day ever. After we'd had enough swimming, we plastered ourselves on the sand and drank beers and had delicious Japanese snacks, procured by Miss Paulette. Mochi-balls (sticky sweet rice) and shrimp crackers and delicious beeeeer (brought by yours truly and Amy). Then we swapped bad relationship stories (I received much sympathy for the Randall debacle, or as Yumi called it "that horrible bastard boyfriend" because she couldn't say his name.) The best was the few who were admitting to writing or receiving really bad poetry from significant others or people who had crushes on them.

After the beach we had some delicious Nyuu Yooku sutayaru cheezuke-ki (New York style cheesecake) made by Yumi. It was very delicious! People kept telling me they wanted to stay, and I honestly wanted them to stay for more time! But sadly, there were trains to catch. So we began the long trip back to Miyazu, where I dropped everyone off, and turned right around to go home. I think I spent about 4 hours in the car yesterday. Worth it.

It's amazing how many instant friends I seem to have already! I only just made good friends my last few weeks in Los Angeles, so it's incredible to have so much socializing all of a sudden. I am not complaining, mind you.

Anyway, it was a good weekend and I even got a tan (to cover my burn!)

Still in Japan

Still in Japan : A Day at the Bridge of Heaven

I went to the beach this weekend with some JETs and some locals who speak awesome English. We went to Amanohashidate, which is this famous bay area nearby. I drove to the train station which was about 45 minutes by car along some crazy narrow roads. It was a little unnerving because drivers round those corners at a million miles per hour (rather, a million kilometers per hour) in the MIDDLE of the road. Lucky for me, my car is small so I fear them less. Though, the safety features on my car are no more fancy than those on a tuna fish sandwich.

The bay was totally awesome. Amanohashidate (天橋立) means "Bridge of the Heavens". The story says that the gods dipped a sword into the sea, from whence Japan came into creation. The land bridge that goes across a bit of water in Northern Kyoto is where the sword first touched the sea. It is also one of the top three "beauty spots" in Japan, which is conveniently close! There are two sides where you can view the land bridge, one in Iwataki and one in Miyazu. If you bend over and look through your legs at designated 'viewing spots', the land bridge is supposed to look like a dragon in the sky. Does it really? I think that's a personal decision.

We got some delicious sandwiches and ice coffee beverages and then went for a swim. I got burnt. Stupid American. I didn’t think I would need THAT much sun screen and we were only in for 40 minutes! But the parts I had put sunscreen on (such as my shoulders got MORE burnt than the rest of me. So that just goes to show, that white people always get burnt and there’s not a lot we can do about it. That is how I validate my pink skin.

Anyway I made some friends and it was all good! There is a South African guy named Scott who has also done film stuff so we chatted about that. And a girl from Los Angeles lent me a swimsuit that was soooo small (the girl is barely 5 feet tall). She is awesome. I met a New Zealand JET named Bryn who lives nearby and a girl named Desirae who lives in sin with a Canadian JET, Andy, in Mineyama. I also met two awesome Japanese girls, Yumi and Jun. They were really tall for Japanese girls, like 5 foot 8 or something! And they were hysterical. I got to practice some Japanese on them, and they got to practice English on me (by practice English, I mean they are fluent already). A fair trade. Then we went for stew and more ice coffee. Then the train ride back to Miyazu station and the long drive home. I had a splitting headache the whole time which sucked, but I don't know what it was from! Probably just the humidity. I blame everything on humidity. Later I learned that Amanohashidate is about a 30 minute drive from my house, so the 45 minute drive to Miyazu station and train ride from there actually took me backwards in distance, and in logic.
I watched quite a bit of TV this weekend... they have weird shows on Japanese TV. One show was a race to find the biggest bug-thing. I don’t know what they are called, but they’re almost a foot long and they have pincers and they are slow moving beetles or something. Anyway they are GROSS. Then they have these commercials for cell phones with Cameron Diaz everywhere and Tommy Lee Jones is in canned coffee commercials where he is working as airport security and then turns into a monster and frightens children. I think he could probably just frighten kids with his face... regardless. Isn’t he supposed to be in MENSA???? Its weird. My favorite thing this weekend by far was the Egyptian game show that had Japanese people in Egypt exploring museums and stuff for the sake of a question game show thing. It made no sense! But it was cute seeing tiny Japanese women interviewing old decrepit Egyptian women with unibrows. I was feeling strangely at home watching both of them. They also had a reenactment of something to do with Pharaohs? And in it they had Japanese men dressed up like Pharaohs and a Japanese lady who was supposed to be... Cleopatra? Everybody knows she looked like (see Elizabeth Taylor).