Long time, no write

Long Time, No Write.
July 14th – September 1st

I HAVEN’T WRITTEN IN ABOUT TWO OR THREE MONTHS… for that I apologize. It’s not that there wasn’t a lot to write about, it’s more that I’ve spent the past two or so months being broke, being busy, and being boring. The three B’s of my summer.
AFTER MY SISTER LEFT JAPAN, things calmed down. I had no more trips planned and I was looking forward to the summer holiday where school would pause and I would move down to Kyoto City to take part in an expensive and intensive Japanese language course. As school slowed down, I was feeling less and less like I wanted to be a part of it. The hours seemed to be growing longer, rather like the summer days. As the heat penetrated the thin walls of my house and workplace, I was feeling the beginnings of cabin fever. By the time mid-July rolled around and it was time to move South for the Summer, I was ready

The apartment

MY SUMMER AWAY FROM INE began around July 13th. I drove down to Yagi where I left my car for multiple days (and on more than one occasion). Good ol free parking… I dragged my suitcase and coffee machine all the way to my ridiculously far away area called Takaragaike/宝ケ池 (the lake of treasures). My dorm room was small but had all the necessities; an Air Conditioner (hallelujah!), a mini-fridge, burner, desk, microwave, faux-closet, faux-bathroom, and a television. I felt at home in such a small space since I’ve been feeling for the past few months (ever since my absence of my sister and family) that my house is just too damn big for one person (and one weasel). My empty nest syndrome began to subside, although I was missing Kirby like crazy. I met my neighbour, Nina, who was very sweet and very good-looking. After many failed attempts to introduce her to Ian (for karma/booty purposes), she and I became bus-buddies and made small talk in the internet lounge while I helped her do her homework (and procrastinated my own).


THE NEXT WEEK, Leigh moved into my house. This was a great relief to the both of us as she was doing me the huge favour of watching my house and pet while I was gone. Although it may have been a relief for Leigh to have a place to put her unpacked belongings, I don’t think the distance did her any favours. In any case, she no longer lived in her house of two years, and I no longer lived in the inaka. It was a weird week for everyone.

BACK IN KYOTO FOR MY SECOND WEEK, I took Megan on board. Megan who had been my only true contact outside of the two-facedness of my year in Tango… Megan who had been my senpai, my teacher, and my friend. I’ll be honest, after three days of spending money I didn’t have, staying out late and ignoring my studies (why did I pay $800 for language class again? Certainly not to study), I was really ready for Megan to leave when the morning came. Not happy, but certainly not upset. She was ready to go home, and I was ready to get back to my temporary life.


HOWEVER, BY MY THIRD WEEK in Kyoto I was crippled with depression. Megan was gone. She wasn’t gone forever – hell she moved to Seattle, so it’s not like this is quits for us, but… she was gone. And Megan had been the best part of my past year in Japan. Without Megan I would never have found all the cool places in Kyoto, I would never have learned what “purikura” truly is, and I would never have had a warm home away from home during the long winter when I felt I had no one else in the world. For me it was impossibly hard to admit that my world was basically broken now that she was gone. After all, I still had good friends in Kyoto! Lauren, Greg and Ian weren’t going anywhere! Plus Leigh was still at my house in Ine – why was I so sad? Why was I so set on not making a single friend at my language school? Why was suddenly for the first time in 11 months feeling like I was the least extraordinary human being ever to walk the face of this fine earth? It hit me like a bus.

BY MY FOURTH WEEK IN KYOTO, I was ready to go home. Home to Ine. I wasn’t sure if I was going to feel happy back in the inaka after all the swank city living… but I also hadn’t done too much swank city living! Fortunately for my sanity, Ian hung out with me a LOT after Megan left. We did cultural activities like going to a museum, walking aimlessly, and accidentally rolling our beers into the Kamo River (well, that was mostly me). We talked a lot about non-Megan related things; Japanese, the newcomer AETs, and Ian’s girl problems. It was refreshing! It seemed like July and August were passing in a flash and I wasn’t even sure what I wanted out of JET or Japan anymore.

MY LAST WEEKEND IN KYOTO I ditched the class’ sayonara party to go up to my house for one day to help Leigh and Steve move out of it. It took a VERY long time – much longer than expected. It involved a lot of sweating, driving around, shipping boxes, and keeping Leigh and Steve hydrated and alive (I don’t think they had slept in days because they had been so busy saying goodbye to everyone they’d ever met in Tango). Despite the exhaustion, it was a really good thing to go back and hang out with the two of them one last time before they would leave Kyoto Prefecture for Kyushyu. I don’t’ think I had anticipated the emptiness I now feel without Leigh. She was a true friend, and without her my times in Tango would have been even bleaker. They dropped me off at Ayabe station and I began my intensely long and awful journey back to my too-far-away-for-no-reason apartment and then met up with Lauren and Ian for beer at the river. I was in the worst mood of my life by the time I met them – but they cheered me up with McDonald’s and booze. We then met up with my coworkers for international karaoke – not to be missed. They really like U2 in Italy.

MY VERY LAST NIGHT in Kyoto was spent in a big crowd of sweaty, distressed and camera-toting Japanese tourists. We had gathered to watch Daimonji (large, lit up kanji on the hills of Kyoto to help guid the spirits from Obon back to Heaven). It was NOT worth it, but it was nice to hang out with Ian and his two friends from home for about 15 minutes before trudging off to meet Leigh and Steve for their last supper in Kyoto.

MY FINAL TRIP BACK HOME after moving out of my dorm was uneventful. However, as soon as I glimpsed the bright blue sparkling water that outlines the coast that I live on, I felt like it was a breath of fresh air. I had really forgotten how beautiful it was where I live, and I felt relieved to be home. I was less relieved to spend the evening fixing my toilet and mopping up the floor, but there’s probably karma in there somewhere. I DID squish a lot of bugs in my Kyoto apartment.


SINCE THEN, IT’S BEEN MEETING the new JET participants. This has involved multiple trips down to Kyoto for conferences, beer gardens, and mingling. I even gave a speech about living in the countryside of Japan, which didn’t go over as poorly as I had anticipated. I kicked a chair by accident, but nobody was severely injured. It was strange and new being a “senpai”, but I was happy to feel knowledgeable for the first time since senior year of college. I’m quite burnt out from all the “newbie” activities, but it’s nice to be on the “old” side of things instead of the “new and sparkly” side. The wide-eyed JET thing got pretty old for me pretty fast, and now I can sit back and relax for the next 12 months before I leave. So, kanpai to that.

UNTIL THE START OF THE SECOND SCHOOL TERM, I was still feeling an on and off depression about losing all of my friends, forcing myself to be social with people I don’t really know, and finding time to do all the laundry I had produced after about 3 weeks of NOT doing any. Thankfully school has resumed and now I feel like I can get back to my life, as unorganized as it may be. My September goal really should be organizing my house, life, and daily habits … but probably I’ll just watch all the TV shows that are coming back on itunes. I’m an admittedly imperfect person. [TV PROMO PICS]

THERE’S MORE TO BE SAID, and there’s a lot I’ve left out… but I think that’s all you get for now.

PS – Kirby celebrated his first birthday! What would I do without him? Probably mop less…

kirby eats ice cubes.

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.

The First Day in Japan

The First Day in Japan

July 29th, 2007

I think I was probably packing the entire last night that I was in Los Angeles. I went out to Canters diner/delicatessen with Gateway, Meg, Mark and his wife Shannon. I didn't eat much, but everything was delicious; Eggs Benedict, a coke float, and a matzo ball soup! After that I went home to the apartment to finish packing and cleaning... I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. Meg woke up early and said goodbye to me, it was sad.

The next morning I finished with goodwill and throwing out the trash and packing up the car and went over to Starbucks for the last time. I had breakfast with Toshi, Amie, Aaron, Letty, Suzanne and Holly! Well, to say we had coffee and then chatted for an hour. Then I ran off to the airport! It was a very very sad goodbye. I'm going to miss Starbucks and everyone there, oddly!

At the airport we had to stand in a long line for checking in with the JET people and then another long line to get our tickets, then for security... then we waited at the airport for a long long time before getting on our enormous plane. The plane was like nothing else! I mean, it was a plane, but the flight rather. We had the most amazing foods ever! Free beer, I got some very hoppy beer which helped me snooze a little on the eleven hour flight. But for the first meal we had espresso sponge cake, eel teryaki with rice and peas, cucumber salad, crab and shrimp salad, and all with chopsticks! So good! Then for lunch we had pasta, soba noodles, various fruits and melons, etc etc etc. It was just amazing. Fresh Japanese green tea the whole time (at least as far as I can tell). It almost made up for a very boring flight. plus all the flight attendants were about 90 pounds, adorable and had special JAL aprons! Pink or blue, with little hot air balloons. It was wonderful.

The Japanese airport in Narita was a blur. We were all so tired... thinking, "let's see... I left at 12pm Saturday and now it's like 5pm Sunday... wait... wait..." and then every JET from Chicago or Los Angeles was trying to find our bags, get them shipped to our prefecture, and then hop on the bus for 2 hours to take our ride into Tokyo to our Keio Plaza hotel. The bus ride was another blur, apparently I missed a glimpse of Disney Tokyo. I just remember lots of grey, never quite being on the ground, and many buildings. I was too tired to read most of the company names. It was strange though, eerily silent. Nobody honking their horns, and I swear we weren't on the actual ground once. The roads seem to float in the air... buildings pop out of everywhere. It felt like outer space.

At the hotel everyone was very helpful and accommodating. I went up to the room, thanks to the lovely girl in the elevator, and met my very theatre-girl roommate, Danielle. She is super excited to be here too. I haven't felt nervous once. Then I had the best shower of my whole life. In the bathroom I was thinking, "this bathroom isn't very tall". I can touch the roof with my hands easily and in the shower, i can almost reach to my elbows! Nobody over 5'9" would fit in the shower! It's awesome! Hooray Tokyo!