Weekend

Ok, so I had kind of a big weekend, etc.

On Friday, I participated in a matsuri, or festival, on the other side of town. The people at the BOE set it up for me so that I could be part of the group carrying the omikoshi, or portable shrine. I was told that it would hurt my shoulders, but I found that not the case. First, we had to get dressed in some festival clothes for the occasion, which consisted of shorts, a jacket-type thing, a shirt-type thing, tabi (Japanese toed cloth shoes), and a headband. A guy helped me put it on, and I met some people, including a guy who works in the same building as the BOE, but does taxes, or something. He spoke some rudimentary (actually pretty good) English, so he mostly talked to me in English. He was also very tall, which is kind of weird. I don't remember his name because I met so many people that I didn't even try to remember it.

I also met some girls who said they were 19. I believe it because at the beginning when they gave us a little sake, the girls turned it down, which I have never known Japanese people to do, excepting the few unfortunate allergic ones. Drinking age here is 20, by the way. One of the guys from the BOE (I don't remember the name) was also doing the omikoshi, and he said something I didn't understand when he saw me talking to the girls, which I think was a joke. I have a legitimate reason for talking to them, though, and that is they are the most comprehensible Japanese people. Men here tend to mutter everything, which makes understanding very hard. Old people have their own way of talking, so they are essentially completely incomprehensible, but younger women speak clearly and ask simple questions, so I get what they are saying.

So, we carried around the shrine, chanting "soya sa," meaning "I have no idea what this means," stopping every few minutes to change places. There were so many people that most of the time, I wasn't even carrying the shrine, just walking alongside, chanting. It was fun, though, and little kids along the way are always fascinated to see someone who is not Japanese. The only bad thing was that because I was doing that the whole time, I didn't get to enjoy the rest of the festival, which involved some kind of dance-type performances and a rock band. There were fireworks, though, which I got to see. I also met some crazy 20-year olds who seemed to be having the time of their lives. I had a conversation with one of the guys who seemed to be in charge (he was in a different all-white outfit) and some of the 20-year olds about the omikoshi and Japanese baseball. Apparently, the Chuunichi Dragons are rivals of the Hanshin Tigers. These two teams seem to be very popular here. The team I like, the Hiroshima Carp, are terrible.

On Saturday, I was waiting for the dealer to bring me my car, but they ended up calling at 4:56 pm to tell me it wouldn't be ready until the 28th or 29th. It was no big deal, but I didn't go with Karen to some stuff because I had to wait. Karen and I were invited to a potluck with other JETs, but she was tired, so we didn't go. Instead, we went to dinner that night at a local place that has Italian (kind of) food. It was pretty good, but what happened after was awesome.

We were walking back (we live within a couple minutes of each other), when we saw some little kids in an alley, playing with fireworks. It was kind of late, so I was curious, and we went over to see them, as they may have been some of my future students. It turns out there was a party for the kids and their parents (?) because the kids had finished their work of collecting cans. A guy whom neither Karen or I had ever met asked me if I drank beer. I should have remembered that that question means "I'm going to give you beer" in Japan, but I didn't think about it, and so he brought me beer. Karen doesn't like beer, so he gave her juice, and we ended up sitting around a little table, talking to the adults and eating yakisoba, fried noodles, and various other stuff. They were very curious about us, and we kept talking about America and how it is different from Japan and what we eat and all sorts of stuff.

Karen doesn't speak Japanese all that much, so when they asked if we were a couple, I told them we were fusai, husband and wife, and she didn't get it until I told her. Japanese people don't generally understand sarcasm, so they believed it at first until she tried frantically to explain. Once they got it, they thought the "American joke" was very funny. Anyway, we got invited to go eat dinner at this guy's house next month, though neither of us know his name. I'm not sure how he's going to find us, but I'm quite certain he will. It shouldn't be hard in a town where there are 5 non-Japanese, and three of those work at the schools here.

This post is already long, so I won't get into the orientation in Matsue. That's all for now.

Kuruma

Hey, hey, sorry to all my loyal readers for not updating sooner, but I don't have internet access over the weekends and I spent the last two days in Matsue at orientation, so I couldn't update. I'll get to that later, though.

I got a car! While I was visiting one of the elementary schools, my car got delivered to the BOE, so now I have a car. I haven't paid for it yet, which works out because I don't have the cash to pay for it right now, as I have not been paid. I can drive around now, though, which is cool. My first trip will be around the town to see if I can find all the schools. That's it for now.

Japanese Keyboards

The keyboard on this computer is really going to mess me up when I have a reason to start using my American laptop for more than listening to music.

The keyboard is essentially a QWERTY set-up, though smashed up because it is a laptop. I really hate laptop input devices. The keyboards are always too small, especially the spacebar and surrounding keys. The keys also don't feel right because they are flat and don't have any of what we would call "action" if this were a piano or guitar. And touchpads are simply the worst invention ever. This computer is equipped with a real mouse, at least, so I just use that. Sometimes it is fun to use the mouse and the touchpad at the same time and see which will exert more control on the cursor.

The main problem with the keyboard is that all those little punctuation keys, which seem minor until you actually get down to writing things, are in the wrong places. I know this sounds culturally insensitive, but their placement is just WRONG, not different. It really has to do with Japanese people not needing apostrophes or quotes, but it is still annoying. You get the apostrophe by hitting shift and 7, and the quotes by hitting shift and 2. For most people, I think this wouldn't be a problem, as they are too lazy to use these punctuation marks, anyway, but I hate when they aren't used (or are used incorrectly, for that matter), so I have to perform this awkward hand motion any time I want to use a possessive or contraction.

The keyboard is also a little strange by western standards because in addition to having letters on the keys, it also has Japanese characters, hiragana, on the keys, presumably for old people who can't read romaji, the characters we all know and love. There are also different "shift" options above the hiragana. The thing is, I don't know how to enable that input mode, so certain characters, such as the underscore, are inaccessible to me. Again, probably not a big deal to some people, but I think it would be nice to have the option.

Before ending this rant, I'd also like to complain that, in particular, the shift and control keys are too small. The shift button is basically the size of a normal letter key, and if I miss it, I hit the page down button, which as far as I know, is completely vestigial. The control key is really only useful to people like me, who hate switching to the mouse mid-document, but its awkward placement prevents me from doing anything like copying or pasting without stopping and taking my hands away from the keyboard.

Just minor complaints.

Eikaiwa

I had my first real eikaiwa, English conversation, with the Izunos last night. They were nice, and we pretty much just talked like in any getting to know people conversation. So, that was easy. I missed the end of the baseball game I was watching, which is kind of lame, but I found out the result anyway. Softbank beat Seibu. I was cheering for Seibu, but only because their uniforms are a very bright blue.

I have to find out where to buy rice here. It is super expensive in the stores, so most people buy it from vending machines, I believe, which give a lower quality (but who can tell?) rice. I thought there was one near my house, but I went there last night, and it seems that it only cleans rice...? I don't know, I'm out of rice, and it makes a nice breakfast and would be easier than buying bread, which just comes in little five-slice "loaves."

Sanshouuo

Wow.

One of the guys in the office asked me if I had ever seen a sanshouuo before, which I didn't understand, because for some reason I never learned how to say salamander in Japanese. So, they looked it up in a dictionary, and got "giant salamander." Of course, I'd never seen one before, so we just went across town to see some that I guess had just appeared in a stream running by somebody's house. These salamanders are over a foot long. It is crazy. There were a couple of them, and they started fighting by biting each others' faces. At least I think that's what was going on. I couldn't understand the old dude, who I guess had called about the salamanders, because all old people are essentially incomprehensible, but I gathered it had something to do with eggs. Anyway, it was really cool, and I wish I had a camera.

Fingernails

I have no idea how often one is supposed to cut one's fingernails. I just cut them when I see they are too long, but I never remember when I did this, or when the last time was, so I don't understand the timeframe. It is very weird.

Books

Over the weekend, I left Cryptonomicon at the office, so I had to settle for reading whatever my predecessor left in the apartment in the mornings while waiting for stuff to cook, etc. My predecessor seems to have strange taste in books, or maybe some of the stuff is just for Japanese people to try because a lot of it is young adults' books. Here's what I read:

Tuck Everlasting - I think this book is relatively famous, at least for kids/tweens/whatever. Anyway, it tells the story of a girl who stumbles upon the Tucks, a family that accidentally made themselves immortal. It's pretty heavy-handed and written in that style of a kid, who doesn't really get the obvious metaphors. Everything has to be laid out, everything happens "as if..." something else. I guess that's kind of condescending, or maybe it is just the author's way of recording a kid's feelings of not being able to put into words their own feelings. Either way, it is kind of annoying, and the book itself is pretty stupid. It is essentially like a bad episode of Twilight Zone where they keep trying to tell you that being immortal would be bad, when it is pretty obvious that the only things that are bad about the Tucks' lives are that they are too stupid to manage being immortal properly.

Bridge to Terabithia - Also famous, I think, since there was recently a movie made about it, and also probably aimed at 10 year olds. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the story didn't involve the kids actually creating some magical kingdom through the powers of imagination or some such fantasy rubbish. Instead, it was just kind of a coming of age story, I guess. Actually fairly compelling, despite the probably necessarily condescending style. The characters are well-drawn, and I even grew to like Leslie, the little girl. Although it is fairly obvious she is going to die ("But what if you die?"), it is still sad that she does.

Thus Spake Zarathustra - This book is what made me wonder about my predecessor's tastes. Obviously very different. I have only made it a little into this book. Despite what the notes by some pompous idiot that are included in the back say, this book is terrible and Nietszchhchezschge or whatever is clearly an idiot. I guess I shouldn't have expected more out of it, since basically all philosophers are idiots. Philosophy makes me angry because it is still an accepted subject of study, and even linked to math because they are both "logical." The difference is clear, though. Mathematics is all about clear, simple axioms, and rigorous proofs, whereas philosophy is about wild, unfounded assumptions and "logic" that is hazy at best. It would be like including an astrology class in with astronomy because they are both about stars.

Super Taisou

Yesterday the whole office was going crazy about radio taisou, the morning exercise that we do every day. It turns out there was a town-wide taisou event where, I am mostly guessing here, the people who actually record the radio stuff came and tons of people came out to do it and be part of the recording (I think). What it meant was I had to get up at 3:30 (I sort of volunteered for this) so they could pick me up at 4, so we could drive across town to "N"-town, where everyone was gathering.
There were people setting stuff up and most of the folks from the office were already there. Mostly I just stood around. I met an older guy who is the head of the international exchange group (a rough translation) here in town. He spoke a few words of English, which was weird because he was obviously trying very hard, which I appreciate, to put it into English, even though he learned I could speak (at least some) Japanese. I also had brief conversations with people from the local elementary schools, whom I have met already. From one guy, I learned that everyone in Japan has been doing radio taisou, starting in schools, since Showa year 4 or thereabouts, which makes it 80 years or more old.
We didn't actually start the taisou until 6:30, but there was a warm-up for it, which is kind of strange, since it is itself a warm-up for the day. The warm-up exercises were purposefully hard, involving a lot of coordination, so basically everyone would mess them up and a good laugh would be had by all. We were all just standing in a field, forming a grid, while doing this. People kept showing up through the warm-up and subsequent speeches given by the mayor, somebody from the prefecture (maybe a governor, I didn't really catch it), the head of the post office, and a couple other important people. By the time we actually got to the radio taisou, there were supposedly 2,500 people there. So, we did that for the usual ten minutes, there were a few more speeches, and everyone left, getting a free gift bag on the way out.
All the workers from the kyouikuiinkai, or board of education (that's not a typo with the two i's) stayed, so I stayed, too, not knowing what was going on or having any way to leave. Jo left to go to the BOE because she assumed everyone was going there. Well, everyone stayed and we took down the tents and picked up, etc. Then we ate breakfast. A lady from the office took me back to the BOE and brought Jo's breakfast. I had a nice conversation with her where I pretty much had to ask her to repeat everything because I can't understand anyone unless they are speaking unnaturally slowly. But, anyway, that was an exciting morning.

Weekend Insanity

I had a big weekend.

On Friday, I was eating my dinner, which was mostly noodles, when I got a visitor. It was Izuno-san, the husband half of a couple that took eikaiwa, English conversation, from my predecessor. It was an unexpected visit, but a good one. I had to clean up because the apartment is a huge mess, due partially to all the stuff my predecessor left behind. Anyway, we set up a time for more English conversation, and just did general introduction stuff with photos and the like. He is originally from Kyushu, the furthest west of the four major islands, but lived for a while in Chiba-ken, up near Tokyo for a while before moving out to the boonies of Shimane. He and his wife really like it here because there are few people and lots of space. I guess the space thing is relative.

So, anyway, on Saturday afternoon, Karen came to pick me up with friends Aki and Shoko in tow. Aki is going to Los Angeles soon, and she was worried about food. A friend of hers was studying abroad (I think she said in Australia) and her host family fed her french fries and coke everyday. Karen and I assured her this was fairly unlikely. So, we went up to Matsue because there was supposedly a matsuri there. We were going to meet up with a couple other JETs, but they decided not to come.

In Matsue, we went to the Matsue Vogel Park, which is a park containing exotic plants and birds. There were even emus and cassowaries. It was pretty crazy. There was a tower giving a nice view of Lake Shinji, on the shores of which Matsue is located. We saw a parrot that could talk, and it was speaking Japanese, which was odd, but makes sense, really. It makes me think

Buy me some rings
And a gun that sings
A flute that toots
And a bee that stings

A sky that cries
And a bird that flies
A fish that walks
And a dog that talks.

Anyway, in one room, we actually got to feed the birds by holding out little cups of fruit and letting the birds fly over and land on our arms. It is a very weird feeling. Karen and friends took pictures of some of these things, so maybe I can convince her to send me some, and then I'll post them.

After the park, we went to Matsue castle, where the matsuri was supposed to be. It was strange because we didn't see anybody wearing kimono, which people often do for such events. It turns out it wasn't a real matsuri, but a "summer fest" that included a hip hop dance show and a group of Japanese musicians playing Latin music. It was very bizarre, but enjoyable. A bunch of JETs who were either working in Matsue or just there for a language course were at the castle, too. So, we hung out and listened to music. There were a couple of Columbians who go to Shimane University there, too. They have scholarships or something to get agricultural degrees, which they just couldn't get where they're from. They take classes in English, so they speak English in addition to Spanish, but neither had picked up much Japanese. Karen was talking to them in Spanish, and when she met Nate, another first year JET, who speaks French, she spoke to him in French. It was weird.

After a while, Karen, Shoko, Aki, and I left to eat dinner at a Sri Lankan curry place. It was a super awesome little hole in the wall, but they even had English menus. It was real curry, not Japanese curry, which I like, but is much more common. So, then, we went back.

On Sunday, Karen picked me up (I am still sans car) and we met up with Satoko, who teaches English, her friend Yumi, Yumi's mom, Heidi, Ivy, and Sally. Oh, also Satoko's sister's boyfriend, Tor, who is from Denmark, but speaks English fluently in addition to Japanese at least very well. Sally is from Tottori, but Heidi and Ivy are also from Shimane. We went to a barbecue for Satoko's students and their families, from what I can tell. There were introduction games and games with waterballoons, the latter being Karen's idea. We were all supposed to bring food, which I did, but I ended up not putting it out because there was so much food there already. Tor and I got put in charge of grilling because I'm American and apparently we grill all the time. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but then Yumi and her mom took over, so it didn't matter.

There was so much food it was ridiculous. There were two big grills on which they cooked meat and vegetables, and there were also potato and noodle salads, onigiri, which are Japanese rice balls, and various other stuff. I ate so much food, and even after we had all stopped eating, the grills were still going. One of the little kids whom I had befriended (I think his name was Hisashi, but I'm not sure) wanted me to play badminton with him, which I gladly did. After a couple minutes, badminton became some kind of baseball with rackets and shuttlecocks when two other kids joined in. I was pretty much awesome at it.

Then Karen started a game of soccer, which was awesome, and I eventually joined. It was hilarious watching the little kids play soccer with the adults. Some of the kids were like 6 years old. The soccer went on for a while, and then Satoko asked Karen to teach salsa dancing. Karen was supposed to have taught me to salsa beforehand, but we just never did, so she was teaching everyone with Satoko only there to translate. Some of the little kids got it, but I was completely terrible at it, as were some of the Japanese adults. It was fun, anyway.

After the salsa was fireworks, which were mostly sparklers, nothing to crazy, but they let everyone do it, even the little kids. It was nice. Then we just kind of hung around for a while, eating or drinking or whatever. I started playing harmonica, which impressed people, and Sally, who is also a music teacher, sang some. It was nice, but eventually we had to go, so we did. Oh, I forgot that there was a watermelon smashing for the little kids. It's basically like a pinata, except it is just a small watermelon, and it is put on a mat on the ground. When they smashed it, they got to eat it. After all this, we went home. A splendid time.

Sometime in the middle of the night, one of my neigbors' alarm went off, and they didn't shut it off for an hour or so, so I'm a little tired today.

Jishin

In the last post, which was about two minutes ago for me, I alluded to the earthquakes here, but I didn't mention that there was one this morning because that post was already too long. So, yeah, there was a strength 3 earthquake in Chiba prefecture (the little part that sticks out next to Tokyo) this morning, according to the news. I'm not sure if that is the Richter scale, or a Japanese system of measuring them, but I'm pretty sure it is very weak because there was one in Tokyo of the same strength when I was there and I didn't even feel it.
The Japanese word for earthquake is jishin, literally "earth quake." I actually know the Chinese characters for that one, which is kind of neat, but not too hard with all the earthquake safety literature floating around. Anyway, Japanese is full of homophones, or whatever they are called. I think this is a result of the limited syllabary and that so many words are borrowed from Chinese, where tones make a huge difference, but don't get brought over with the words. Here are some other words that are also pronounced jishin:

by oneself
self-confidence
(magnetic) core
benevolence, mercy
courtier, attendant
hour hand (watch or clock)
magnetic needle

Keep in mind that these all use different Chinese characters for ji and shin, but it is still weird.

Matsuri

So, last night I met up with Karen, the high school ALT, to have dinner. We were going to go to a little place between my apartment and the BOE where I've been working, called Picco Picco, but it was oddly closed. They apparently close at strange times throughout the year, and this time is especially odd, because it is Obon, basically a weeklong (maybe) holiday, which I think might have something to do with honoring the dead. I'm not really sure, but it's about the only time the young people come back here. Since Yokota isn't really the most exciting city, when kids graduate high school and head off to college, they rarely feel the need to return from the flashing lights of the big city, but Obon is the exception.
So, there are lots of young people in town for a few days, reuniting with their classmates and eating at all the restaurants, so it seems odd that Picco Picco would be closed at such a busy time. Yesterday even featured the traditional ceremony for twenty year olds (anyone whose twentieth birthday is this year), where they take pictures. Everyone but Jo, me, and one other guy in the office were outside in the blazing heat of the parking lot doing stuff for that. I almost felt guilty, but nobody asked us to help, so we just sat around talking in air-conditioned comfort.
Sorry for the lack of structure here, but my mind is wandering. Anyway, Karen and I went to another restaurant called Friends (furenzu), which was pretty sweet. They seated us at a table for four people, even though there were only two of us. Then three other guys came and couldn't find a spot to sit because the only available table was for two people. I just suggested that we switch tables, as we hadn't even ordered yet, and everyone was amazed at my graciousness. Sometimes it is just amazingly polite here. So, anyway, I had some katsu kare (curry rice with a cutlet), which is pretty much the best thing ever.
Then we went across the street to the matsuri, which is a festival. This particular one was centered on dancing in this big circle. First just the kids and their parents, who basically just try to keep the kids dancing and not running around, do the dance, and they all get candy. Then everyone else can dance. James's wife, whose name I can't think of just now, was there with his two sons, who are of course incredibly cute and just utterly fascinated by me, so Karen and I talked to them for a little after the kids' dance. I met a couple of Karen's Japanese friends, named Aki and Shoko, if I recall correctly, and some drunk guy who wouldn't tell me his name bought Karen and I each a beer from one of the vendors before wandering off somewhere. One of the town officials (or at least guys in matsuri jacket things) kept telling me that I should dance when it started again, because the people who dance first get a better chance at winning the prizes.
I couldn't figure out what he meant by dancing first, since it is a group dance that doesn't start until there are a bunch of people ready, but Karen and I danced, anyway. We had to fumble through a deceptively easy-looking dance around the circle once, and then everyone was given a ticket (inside a matchbook). We danced around the circle two more times, getting a ticket each time. Karen's friends gave her their tickets, so she ended up with five or six of them. After all the dancing, they had a lottery, basically, giving out prizes. Everyone got something for each ticket they had. I ended up with four boxes of tissues and two packets of instant ramen, so I was pretty pleased. Karen got some tissue, a coupon for a local store, and a vacuum cleaner. She won one of the big prizes.
I'm afrad I'm not being very descriptive of the matsuri, but it's just kind of something you have to see. Karen took a few pictures, so maybe I can get her to email me those. I took a picture on my phone, but I'm not sure that does any good. A lot of people were wearing yukatas, summer kimonos, but other people were just in shorts and t-shirts or the like. There were vendors selling typical vendor food, takoyaki, corndogs (bafflingly called French dogs this time), yakisoba, etc. This was a pretty small matsuri, but that's because it is a pretty small town. Some of the matsuri in bigger cities are just crazy with decorations and stands and everything on street after street. Anyway, it was really fun, and after, James, who had shown up after he got done with working, went back to his place to chill. So, I'm kind of tired today, but it was a pretty awesome experience.
If anyone reading this actually comes to Japan, I'd suggest trying to find a matsuri to go to. It's not something you can find anywhere else, and it's always fun, if only just to watch. Plus, if you go to one in a small town, it's likely some friendly person will take an interest because you're not Japanese but you're at this uniquely Japanese thing. It's said that every day there is a matsuri somewhere in Japan. It's also said that everyday there is an earthquake somewhere in Japan. So, anyway, yoshi!

Cryptonomicon

I am completely addicted to this book. I should probably be studying kanji, but I don't currently have any cards to make flash cards with. Instead I am frantically reading this book because it is so excellent, although I suspect it would not appeal so much to people who, unlike me, are not math nerds.
The book is, at heart, about cryptoanalysis, which is kind of a neat subject for a math guy. One of the great things about the book is that the author, Neal Stephenson, clearly knows what he is talking about in terms of computers and number theory, specifically, and isn't afraid to include full-blown proofs of the frequency of a chain coming off a bicycle. Another great thing is his use of sometimes absurd metaphorical language and the way his different narrators all have distinct voices. Like I said, it is a fascinating read.
Now what to have for dinner tonight?

Itakatta

Last night was pretty much the most miserable night ever. My sunburn, at least on most of my back, stopped hurting so much but started itching in a way that is just indescribable. I was about to tear my own skin off. I'd actually get in the very hot bathtub, which made it feel like someone was holding a flame to my skin just to make it stop itching. That really only brings relief for about 2-5 seconds, so I had to keep switching between that and showering myself with ice cold water. It took over an hour, but eventually the worst of the itching subsided, and after much longer, I was able to get some sleep. The sunburn is looking less red now, so I guess that is good. Also, I kicked a soccer ball around with Karen for a little earlier that night, and the Seibu Lions beat the Lotte Marines 4-3.

Sleeping

So, the night before last, I only slept a few hours due to a sunburn which made most normal sleeping positions painful. So, work yesterday was a struggle, since it hurts a bit just to wear a shirt, and I was so tired I kept almost falling asleep at my desk. Fortunately, they put on the ac, which feels nice. Of course, going across the street to get lunch from the convenience store (one of two in town) is a painful experience, but manageable.
So, by the time I got home yesterday afternoon, I was tired and hungry because I hadn't eaten much all day. The sunburn seems to mess with my appetite, for one thing, but also it is just hard to make anything when you can't move your arms. I almost immediately made curry rice to have for dinner because it takes only the amount of time it takes to cook rice, and I had everything I needed for it. I ate that and then immediately fell asleep (it was like 5pm at this point) until 2. Then I woke up, read Cryptonomicon for maybe half an hour, and went back to sleep until the alarm woke me at 7:15. So, that was nice, but I got some missed calls, I think, and I don't know who from.

Books

I've managed to read some books while here, so I thought I'd write a short post about them.

So Far from the Bamboo Grove - I just read this the other day while I didn't have much to do. That title may be slightly wrong. It's an autobiographical account of a Japanese girl escaping Korea at the end of WWII. It's not bad, though the English is a little stilted. Kind of interesting and pretty depressing.

Farenheit 451 - This book, like everything I have ever read by Bradbury, sucks. It's basically the old idea of a government that censors everything played out with crappy one-dimensional characters for a few hundred pages. Bradbury only gets points for having the censorship start with the population, not the government, because they are tired of intellectuals and only want to watch mindless tv. The main problem with the book is that he can't help waxing poetic at every little detail, and he's not even a good poet, so it is even worse, and really out of character for the narrator, a fireman.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms - I'm still reading this massive Chinese epic. I'm only about 10% of the way done, but it is pretty sweet. The reading is a bit hard because it is basically about feudal China and the customs and terminology are all strange. Fortunately, some people know what is going on and post explanations. There's almost non-stop warfare and banquets, but if you don't worry too much about remembering who is who (there are thousands of characters), it is a fast read.

Cryptonomicon - (by Neal Stephenson) A weird book, but very well written, for as far into it as I've gotten. It's strange because the story keeps skipping back and forth between different times and places, but it has already featured Alan Turing, so that's neat.

Frog and Toad - There were three of these books left in my apartment by my predecessor. I think it's probably the whole series, but I don't know and I don't care enough to look it up. Classics all around, and the most vivid account of life as an Amphibian you will ever see.

Shuumatsu

This weekend was fun.

On Friday I had lunch with Jo, James and his wife, and Karen, the other JET in this town. She teaches the high school. On Friday night, I went over to James's to play Colecovision and drink Sake until pretty late. So, that was fun.

On Saturday, Karen picked me up, as I'm still about a week away from having a car, and we went to neighboring Tottori prefecture. Tottori is the only prefecture less populous than Shimane, but there's a town called Nichinen which is basically right on the border, and we met a couple JETs there, Heidi from Unnan and Sally, whose house we went to. After a while, we went looking for a place to have dinner, but it was late and Sally only knew of two restaurants in the town, which is absolutely tiny. It's basically just a single street with some shops and houses on it. So, we ended up going to a Chinese restaurant which was deceptively small. We ordered a bunch of stuff and shared it, including Chahan, which is just fried rice. It came with a bowl, which we weren't sure was soup or sauce. Anyway, Karen said she'd try it, and I did too. It was funny, but I'm not in the mood to go into a lot of details right now. After dinner we got some half-price ice cream at a grocery store and then watched the Rainman at Sally's. It's maddening when movie have subtitles because I can't help reading them, which can be frustrating in Japanese, and pointless when the actors are speaking English.

Then Karen and I went home and that was that.

On Sunday, Karen took me to the nearby town of Hirata (A different one, Alex) and we met up with Ivy, a JET there, and Satoko, a Japanese woman that they hang out with. We went to a couple stores because they wanted to get stuff for the rest of the day. Then we went to a beach, maybe Taki, I don't remember, but it was something like that. We didn't really go to the beach, we just went to the shopping complex there to get takoyaki, which is octopus balls. It's a pretty delicious food, and the girls were chanting "takoyaki" on the way there. I guess they really like it. So, we had that, and then kept driving to get to another beach called Nima. We were there for about 5 hours before meeting up with Heidi and Sally at an onsen nearby. I didn't have any sunblock on, so my entire torso and head are sunburnt fairly badly, which is making me not want to blog. The onsen was nice, even if it hurt madly getting in the tub at first. It felt great after a while. It was also incredibly crowded. I think this is because it's near the beach, where a bunch of people were, and I'm pretty sure this week is Bon-yasumi, which is some sort of holiday thing. I'm not really clear on it, but I won't get my car until next week as a result of the dealer being closed this week.

After the onsen, we went to Izumo to meet up with Yuko, another Japanese friend and eat dinner, which we had at a Chinese restaurant because the one we'd wanted to go to was packed and we would have had to wait an hour. We had a splendid time, and there was a unlimited drink bar, in the style they call Viking. I had some kind of melon frosty drink which was pretty good. By then my sunburn was really starting to hurt, so after dinner when we went to the Club Sega to get pictures taken, I didn't go in the booth because I didn't want to be crowded. But, anyway, then there was some gift giving in a parking lot, and Heidi drove Karen and me back to Karen's car, which had been left in the parking lot of a store for convenience. When we got there, there was a guy just standing in the parking lot, which was empty save Karen's car. We think he might have been waiting for us to move the car, which probably shouldn't have been parked there, as we never even went in the store, but no big deal. He didn't say anything, so he may have just been keeping an eye on the ruffians making noise across the street in front of a hotel. Then Karen drove me back and I had a great time trying to sleep without letting anything touch my back or shoulders. I turned on the AC in my bedroom, which I was grateful for, but it still took a long time to get to sleep. So today is a little uncomfortable, but I'll make it. Plus, I have the magic healing powers of miso soup on my side.

Correction: I may have (I'm not going through my old posts to find it) called Yakult's baseball team the Sparrows, which is a terrible name, but they are actually called the Swallows, which is an even worse name.

School Visits

So, today was kind of eventful. I was driven about town to visit some of the elementary schools where I'll be working. It was really hot, though, so I can't remember where the schools were or which ones they all were, which is probably a bad sign. It was nice, though, and there was of course coffee/tea at every school we visited. The point of the visits was just to talk with the principals, not about anything in particular. They're all nice; I just wish I were better at conversational Japanese. At the first school, they were talking about whether or not I could read kanji, which I can do, but I didn't really figure out what they were saying until they'd already decided I couldn't. It's sort of too bad because I'm actually pretty decent with kanji, and it's one of the easier things to study. Ah, well.
My heart's not into blogging today, so I'll keep this short. The only other thing that happened was we ate lunch at a nice restaurant, so I got some unagi, meaning eel. It's what Jo ordered, and since I hadn't had any since I arrived in Japan this time around, I figured that sounded good. She really digs it, like most Westerners, I guess. I think it's pretty alright, too. I could say a lot more about the schools and all, but suffice it to say it was a good time and I'm tired. Later.

Apaato

I didn't really do too much last night. As far as I know, there wasn't even any baseball, yakyuu in Japanese, on the television, so I ended up just watching some other stuff. There was a documentary on Route 66, which was neat. They went through Carthage (IL?) and talked to people. Obviously, they did it in English, but they dubbed over the questions in Japanese. They subtitled the English responses, so it was a weird combination of stuff. Especially when they obviously asked, "How are you?" as Americans are wont to do, but dubbed over the question with "Ohayou gozaimasu" or something. The Americans would respond, "Good, how are you?" or whatever and it would be translated as "Ohayou" or something. Also funny when they asked some old guys what they talk about, and they responded "just bull," which was translated as "zenbu" or everything.
You see, in Japan, they don't ask "how are you?" as a greeting. Ogenki desu ka? is actually a question about your health, and a somewhat honest answer is expected. People only ask it if they have reason to believe you might not be well, such as you look sick or you just finished a long journey.
But, I digress, as I am wont to do. Since I don't yet have a camera and I know the hordes are clamoring for pictures of my life here in rural Japan, I've drawn up a diagram of my apartment.


It's actually pretty big, much bigger than I would have expected. It came furnished with pretty much everything, like a cute little Japanese refrigerator, a cute little Japanese oven, and an oddly normal-sized bed. They even gave me a mattress pad, which is strangely hard, but that works out for me because I think it is comfortable. I'm one of the few JETs in the area who doesn't have any tatami mats, and no futon to sleep on. I guess I am missing out on part of the Japanese experience, but I've done it before, and the western style bed requires less maintainance.
The oven is small, but certainly suits my needs. I've only ever used one burner so far, and that was for boiling noodles. There's a little compartment just for making Japanese style fish, but I'm not sure how to do that. Someday I plan on doing that for breakfast, but I will need to get a recipe first.
There are separate rooms for the toilet and the bath/sink, which is the standard Japanese way of doing things. I think that's a good system and I have no idea why we don't do that in America. The room with the sink has a washer in it, which is the typical Japanese small style. It works out, since I only have the clothes I could bring with me, anyway. I do laundry about every other day, and hang the clothes out on the balcony to dry. If it's raining, I can hang them in the laundry room on a rack that's in there. It's a little crowded in that room, but not really a problem. The room for the bath is connected to the laundry room. It's the Japanese style, which I dig. Half of the room has a shower, the kind you can move around, and just looks like a tiled floor, but there is a hidden drain somewhere. Once you take a shower, you can sit in the tub to relax. Japanese people in general love baths. They like the bath a little hot for me, though. I mean absurdly hot. It is nice, though.
The bedroom has a little air conditioner on the wall that I haven't used yet. It's pretty hot, but it's not too bad. There's no air conditioning in the rest of the apartment.
My predecessor left me a bunch of stuff, which is nice because I don't have to buy much, but she also left a bunch of stuff I will never use, so there are just boxes sitting around that don't do anything. Supposedly, before she cleaned, there was so much stuff in the apartment that you couldn't get in without crawling over boxes. So I'm grateful for the cleaning.
I generally eat my meals at the table while watching the tv. I like to watch baseball, but there's also a wide variety of absolutely unexplainable stuff on, and lots of travel shows which are mostly about wacky hosts making faces and eating regional specialties. I have to get a job as a Japanese television personality.

Today's Events

Today's been an active day at work. W-san, my supervisor, gave me a bag of food, which was very nice. I'll have to give her something, I think. She gave me some umebooshi, which are sour pickled plums, some instant miso soup, and some instant thing that I'm not sure of, but she explained how to make it, and I understood that, so it should be good. Generally Japanese food is good. Also, miso apparently give you super powers, if my Japanese classes are to be believed.
I made my lunch for today, which is a first. Since I am practically a working man now, I have a regular lunch hour, meaning I can't just go home and fix something. So, I made rice balls, which I think have a name, but I don't remember. I bought the stuff to make them for about 100 yen at the supermarket the other day. It's basically just dried flakes of stuff that you mix into the rice once it's cooked. Then you make balls, or triangular prisms, rather, out of it. I felt that this would be a good start to cooking that wasn't just instant noodles or something.
Jo took me over to James's house. He's a Canadian with a Japanese wife. They've been living here for something like 19 years, and he runs some kind of school. Seems like a neat dude, and it's good to meet somebody who speaks real English instead of Kiwi English, which is at times less comprehensible than the Japanese.
This morning I got to go car shopping. Yes, car shopping. One guy from the office drove me around to a few car dealers in town. The conversations can be a little confusing, but I'm getting by alright. Also, one of the dealers has a daughter who speaks near-perfect English, having studied in Scotland for a year, who helped out. I'm waiting on a list of cars from one of the dealers, so I don't have a car yet. I'm kind of excited to drive a tiny, tiny car on the wrong side of the road. Yes, the wrong side.
One of the dealers (I use the term liberally) seemed to be a mechanic who had a few cars in a garage up on a hill. I got to test drive the car he had sitting out, which seemed nice. He asked if I was from Chicago, so I told him I was from near Chicago. It's kind of amazing when a Japanese person knows anything about the geography outside of his own country, as they are so isolated in general, so I didn't want to get into a complicated discussion. He then told me he'd been to Alberta, Canada, so that was interesting. I'm thinking of getting that car.
That's pretty much it for now.

Weekend Stuff

I return after a long absence.

I don't have internet access at my apartment yet, so I can't update on the weekends, but I do have plenty of time to walk around "O"-town and see what's going on. Due to the fact that the town is really multiple towns under one heading, it's quite spread out for a small town. Also, it's very typically Japanese in its layout, with rice fields interrupting houses and businesses with really no rhyme, reason, or districting. The people seem pretty shy, which is fairly typical, and don't really say much to the new weird looking foreigner except maybe konnichiwa or ohayou gozaimasu. It's pretty, though, with mountains pretty much on all sides in the distance.
I walked around a bit this weekend and happened upon middle school students at practice even though it is currently still their vacation time. There were kids practicing hokke, or hockey, which is really field hockey, not real hockey. I think one of the teams, either middle school or high school, I don't know which, won some kind of championship, as there was a ceremony for them in front of the board of education, but I don't really know the deals.
I heard about this ceremony at the sort of welcome ceremony for me at one of the schools. The principals of all the schools, some people from the board, and even the town mayor and vice-mayor came. We sat in a circle, with sheets of paper announcing the names of each attendee hanging off the table in front of them. The mayor gave a speech, which was written down for me, but had to be translated to me for some reason by Jo. It was a nice speech about cultural understanding or something. The mayor seems like a nice old man, but I couldn't tell much else. He smiled a lot and sat next to me. After his speech, I had to introduce myself, which I did a pretty terrible job of, and then each attendee introduced him/herself. Then there was cake and coffee and people asked me what sports I like and what I like about Japan. I told them baseball and food, and they asked me if I eat natto and pickles and various other Japanese things. There was a huge sign on the wall saying youkoso Jeffrey-san or something. I would have taken a picture of it and of all the other stuff, but I don't have a camera as of yet. Really, I haven't done this ceremony justice, as it is typically Japanese weirdness that is so charming and friendly.

On Sunday, Jo picked me up, as I am currently working on getting a car and learning how to get anywhere, and we drove up to "U"-City, a city a few km away. It used to be something like 4-6 towns, but it got combined into one city. It's bigger than "O"-town (big enough to be a shi, not a cho), but isn't massive or anything. There are a bunch of JETs, there, though, mostly living very close together. We just stopped to get two JETs, her friend Heidi, also from NZ, and Nate, a new guy from Minnesota. We took Heidi's car up to Matsue, the capitol and largest city of Shimane.
A note about towns combining: a lot of towns have been doing this in Shimane, and I think around the country. We're pretty sure this is due to economic problems, which is funny, because the government pays JETs to do nothing sometimes. I think the roots are twofold. First is that the Japanese population in general is shrinking. They just don't have kids, and they also live something like a million years on average, so there are too many old people who can't work and not enough young people who can. The second reason, I think, is that nobody young wants to live in the country, so people who can work all move to the cities to get better jobs. Then the whole thing falls apart. Apparently, there was a town in Hokkaido that went bankrupt because there were actually no young people to support the aging population. That's what I hear, anyway.
So, we went up to Matsue because Nate wanted to buy some things which really aren't available out in the boonies, and because there was a fireworks festival. I'm not sure if there is another reason for the festival or not. Some people dress up in yukata, summer kimonos, and tons of people go sit by Lake Shinji (meaning hole road), to watch the fireworks. We went to a restaurant called Gusto (gasuto), basically just to get a prime parking spot. We stayed there for a while, then went out the back way so that the parking attendants wouldn't notice we had been "eating" for four hours. We had to cross a street, which had been closed, and instead of going around, we just ducked under a fence, which I'm pretty sure the police noticed and didn't like, but didn't do anything to us. Then we met up with some JETs and watched the fireworks. It was a pretty good show. Maybe not quite as good as Yokohama's Umi-no-Hi show, but impressive, nonetheless. After I got back, I pretty much just went to sleep. Good times.

Typhoons and File Names

A couple of thoughts unrelated to the last post.

Last night I survived my first typhoon. The Japanese word is taifuu, meaning "standing wind," roughly. Probably it didn't make the news in America, as it was pretty small and American news outlets don't realize there is a world outside Paris Hilton, but it was the top story here. I guess it was pretty small, but I don't really know. The newscasters were all flipping out (as much as they ever do), especially on the local Shimane station (it also seems to cover neighboring Tottori prefecture).
Basically there was a lot of rain and wind, but I don't think there was any real damage to anything. I just closed the windows to keep things from getting wet and watched a baseball game. If you were wondering, it was a nailbiter, with the Hanshin Tigers pulling out a late 6-5 victory over the Yakult Sparrows. Seriously, it was pretty exciting. Yakult (a company that makes yogurt drinks, I think) was ahead 4-3 for a while, but Hanshin (another company, the team is based in Nishinomiya in Hyogo prefecture) had a huge inning and pulled ahead 6-4. In the ninth inning, Yakult got some guys on and even scored a run, so it was 6-5. With two outs, they had men on second and third, and then something happened I have never seen before.
The batter swung and missed for the third strike, but the ball got past the catcher, so he started barrelling down to first, while the guy on third ran home. The runner from third actually made it home, and for a second they flashed 6-6, but then the catcher threw the batter out at first, so it stayed 6-5 and Hanshin was victorious. Pretty neat stuff.

The other thing I wanted to address briefly was that on Japanese computers, My Documents is called mai dokyumento and My Computer is called mai konpyuuta I wonder why they didn't just use Japanese?

Asa no Taisou

Another day at the office. Today I have an actual task, though. I have to write a few sentences about myself for publication in something. It was never really explained, but it's probably just the local newspaper. Hopefully, anyway, because my Japanese isn't good enough to where I'd like to see it written all over. It's fairly standard stuff, though, so it isn't too hard. I'm mostly done with it, so I thought I'd take a break to post about Asa no Taisou.
Asa no Taisou (a term I am cobbling together, not one they told me specifically) means morning's calisthenics, roughly. Every morning around 8:20, the radio comes on and starts playing this weird music, mostly bells, with a man counting sets of 8 or so and occasionally saying things I can understand, but involving ashi, or legs. All the people in the office get up and start stretching. I'm not actually sure if it's the radio or what, but one lady asked me if I knew what "rajio taisou" was in English. The thing is that "rajio" may mean cassette player or anything else like it, in addition to just radio. I wasn't sure what "taisou" meant, but "tai" is the root for body, so I kind of guessed and told her calisthenics. My electronic dictionary tells me it's gymnastics, but nobody here is doing any flips, so I think my translation is better.
Jo, the New Zealander at the desk opposite mine, really hates "morning stretch," as one worker here called it, and somehow always comes in just as it is finishing. She tells me that they used to play it at her apartment at 6:30 every morning before she disconnected the radio or something, and said it was a bit "big brother-ish." I'm not going to deny that; it is bizarre in that way. I don't really mind it, though, especially since I'm generally not doing much other work at the time. Yesterday was my first day with "morning stretch," so you can imagine I was a little confused when it started. I just went with it, though, and it worked out. My supervisor laughed a little when she saw me do it, in that kind of foreigners-are-so-cute kind of way, so there was much fun to be had. It's a little weird, but I think American workplaces should adopt the practice.

Tokyo Orientation part 3

Tuesday was the last day of orientation, and the most intensive. The whole day was pretty much spent in sessions about specific aspects of being a JET. We had our choice of many different sessions. I went to one about driving in Japan, as I've been told I need to buy a car to get to all of the distant schools I'm assigned to. Mostly they just talked about all the bad things that can happen if you break the laws, but they had a sheet about estimated costs of driving, which was nice. I did learn that you have to make a complete stop at all crossroads and look both ways before crossing, and that people do indeed get pulled over for not looking thoroughly enough. So, there's that.
I also went to a couple sessions on elementary JETs. One of them was particularly nice, as it was run as if it were an elementary class. We sang songs and played games. It was hilarious, and probably the most useful session of the whole shebang. A nice Japanese lady from Kyoto ran it, and it sounded to me as if she was say "Kyot" which seems like a very weird pronunciation for Japanese. I've never met anyone else from Kyoto, so maybe this is a regional thing. I didn't ask, though, so I guess I will never know.
That night I met up with my red-haired friend who was just departing Fukushima-ken for home via Tokyo. Fukushima is a rather large prefecture north of Tokyo. He was sort of sad to leave his own tiny village of Hirata, but also happy to be going home. We mostly just walked around Shinjuku, as he was too tired to go anywhere, having lugged hundreds of pounds of luggage half a mile or so to his hotel from the train station. We went to some kind of bizarre juice bar with tiny chairs. I had some melon-yogurt drink which was ok, but wasn't quite like I expected. Strange. We watched a little Japanese tv, something that involved tv personalities competing with people who have unusual skills. For instance, two tv personalities (this is a job here) tried to eat these little tubes of frozen something or other before a little kid could do something like 100 backflips. Or they had to make and eat instant yakisoba (a noodle thing) before a speed eater could eat 50 custard things. The tv personalities almost always lost. If you have watched any Japanese tv, this show should not surprise you in the slightest. It is important to note that shows such as this one take up probably half of the Japanese broadcast day. The rest is news, baseball, and renzoku dorama (serials) which range from the dramatic to the absurd. After the tv, I went back to my hotel and went to bed. I'm pretty sure I annoyed my roommates by coming in and taking a shower at around midnight while they were trying to sleep, but whatever. I was the one who needed to get up at 6:00 the next morning.

Tokyo Orientation part 2

I'm a blogging fiend.

Monday was the first real day of orientation. Orientation mostly means listening to speeches which vary in relevance to the upcoming job and eating provided meals. There was required stuff in the morning, which I think was mostly just general speeches about how much fun it was going to be and how we need to do our best. Everyone was very enthusiastic and happy to help, which was nice, but it was the second round of speeches that covered these same vague ideas, so it wasn't all that entertaining. Gotta give everybody an E for effort, though. In the afternoon, there were some workshops which were optional (actually almost everything is optional because they don't take attendance at all) which I skipped because I was feeling a little tired of these things, and a lot of the stuff didn't apply to elementary JETs so much. Instead I went to akihabara to buy an electronic dictionary.
Akihabara is famous for its so called electric town, which is an area filled with giant electronics stores, arcades, and the like. A lot of foreigners go there to pick up cheap electronics, but the joke is on them because Japanese electronics are more expensive in Japan. Seriously. I think it has to do with a lack of storage space, but I don't know. Shopping in Akihabara (fall [I don't know] plain) is an experience like none other. The stores are packed so tightly that if you run into somebody else in an "aisle" one of you is going to have to back up. A lot of the stores are 5+ stories high and there are flashing lights and people in costumes trying to give away advertising-laden fans and tissues in front of a lot of stores. The people in costume constantly yell out things like "irasshaimase," and most people just ignore it. If you want an admittedly poor-quality fan or some tissue, though, you can just grab one and walk off. I imagine it is the kind of job that kills people on the inside. I don't generally like the idea of going to Akihabara because it is kind of a trendy place for foreigners and also it is crazy, but it's one of the easiest places to find electronic dictionaries.
I got one in a duty-free (I don't know how this works) shop for around US$ 70. It doesn't have the nice kanji-drawing function in it, but it can still be used as a kanji dictionary using a system of stroke number, radical, and reading lookups. The cheapest one with a writing function I could find was about $300, which is just too much to pay for something like that. I spent too much time looking for cheaper ones, though, so I didn't have time to go to Ueno as I had planned. Ueno has a somewhat-famous giant toystore where I was going to buy Pokemon cards for someone. I had to get back to Shinjuku in about 40 minutes by that point, and the train ride on the Yamanote line is about half an hour.
As a side lecture which is not interesting, the Yamanote line is one of about a trillion lines of railroad in and around Tokyo. It's the central line that goes in a circle, stopping at all the places any visitor would want to go, and acting as the main conduit for commuters who need to switch lines coming and going from work everyday. The problem is that there are no express trains on this particular line, so if you want to go to a station that is on the other end of the line, it will take about half an hour. Also, around rush hour, and any time you are near certain stations like Shinjuku, the trains are so crowded that you will be necessarily pushed up next to a bunch of other people. It's not really that big a deal, but something to watch out for if you haven't been on Japanese trains before. Also, women have been groped so much on the trains that many trains have women-only cars to protect them.
Tokyo's public transit system is (I claim this with no experience traveling in Europe, but still confident in my assertion) the most incredible in the world. There are so many train lines running all over that it is almost mind boggling. There is also a subway system, which is almost as extensive, and buses for everything else. You are literally never more than a block from some form of public transportation in Tokyo. This alone would be impressive, but what is incredible is that everything is ALWAYS on time. The only things that throw the schedule off at all are weather/earthquakes that actually destroy(s) the tracks, or people suiciding by jumping in front of the trains. Nobody does this now because families incur the costs of doing so, which would only bring more shame on them. Keep in mind that at most stations, a train arrives at the station at least once per 5 minutes per line. Also, if there is for some reason a delay, JR issues excuse notes so people don't get in trouble at work. Ridiculous.
The crowning achievement of the Tokyo transportation system, however, is how easy it is to use. Each station has at least one map of the lines. A big red arrow marks the station you are at, which is generally labeled in Japanese and English. You just find the station you want, and look at the number by it. That is the amount you need to pay. You put that much money into the machine, press the button with that amount on it, and get your ticket and change. Put the ticket into the gate and get it back with a hole punched in it. Get on the train, get off at your station, put the ticket in the gate and go about your business. Even if you mess up for some reason, you can just use the fare adjustment machine to fix it. And there are always JR employees whose only job is to stand around waiting for you to ask questions. And they understand English pretty well, generally. I almost feel bad for other foreigners there. Except for the Chinese, because stuff is often written in Chinese, too. And Korean. Japan is so nice to its guests.
But I digress. When I got back, there was a banquet for us, which was delicious. There were tables and tables of food, and tables and tables of beer, ginger ale, and coke. Japanese people love beer and coke like you would not believe. I spent most of the time talking to the Brits, who have a magical way of finding each other in a crowd that is something like 80% American and 20% a mix of Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, South African, and the requisite Japanese officials. They were all pretty decent chaps and we had fun talking about how British people have funny accents and Americans don't know that countries exist outside of North America.
After the banquet, some of the prefectures got together to go out. Shimane got together and went to a nearby beer garden. We new Shimane JETs had gotten pretty tight over the last two days, so it was pretty sweet. For those unfamiliar, a beer garden is an outdoor restaurant sort of thing where you pay some ridiculous amount, around 3000 yen, that is $30, to sit at a table and have plate after plate of food that ranges from little pieces of meat to plates of fried noodles brought to you over the course of about an hour and a half. And, as long as you stick to beer, unlimited drinks. So, that was fun. Apparently, afterwords, a lot of the prefecture went Karaoke (which is for most people an excuse to drink excessively), but some of us didn't know, so I ended up trying to find some more people to go out with. A guy named Adam, who is from Ireland, and is a new CIR in Shimane and I couldn't find anybody willing to go out, so I ended up just going to bed. Still, a pretty good night in all.
There's just one more day of actual orientation to log, so I'll put that in the next update.

Japanese Course

There really isn't much to do here. Well, there is more to do, but blogging makes it look more like I am working. Not that anyone expects me to do anything at thist point. I just filled out a form to get a Japanese course mailed to me here. It's free, and I had to fill it out, anyway, though I could have said I didn't want the course, so I might as well take it. I can drop it at any time, so it is cool.
I signed up for the advanced course (highest of three levels), so let's hope I'm not in over my head. I've taken intermediate Japanese a couple times now, so I think I'll be good. Anyway, ganbarimasu yo.

Tokyo Orientation part 1

If you are curious as to why the Tokyo Orientation post comes after the first Shimane post, you aren't reading carefully enough. I didn't have access to the internet in Tokyo, so it had to wait until now. I also never got to see my old host family, the Nishiyamas in Mobara, due to a packed schedule, which is zannen, but I have traded some emails with them, and they have wished me all the best and whatnot. I like to put just one word of Japanese into an English sentence so that it annoys everyone.

We arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport around 2:30 pm on Sunday. We took Japan Airlines (JAL), or at least most of us departing from Chicago did. Some people were unlucky enough to get stuck on American Airlines. I say unlucky because apparently American sucks, though I have not personally flown with them, so I do not know specifically. The flight was actually pretty alright. I mean, it was 13 hours long or so, but pretty comfortable. Also, since we all flew out together, we all sat by people we had maybe met in Chicago, or at least people who were doing the same thing as us, giving us a little to talk about. Usually, you end up sitting by some random stranger and only say,"uh, excuse me, I need to pee." It's usually very awkward, like it was the last time, when I got stuck next to some Korean guy who slept THE ENTIRE FLIGHT except for meals. I can't sleep at all on planes, which was no different this time, so that just annoyed me. Also, since he was Korean and I don't speak a lick of Korean (I'm pretty sure nobody but Koreans and the computer that invented Korean actually does), communication was pretty much limited to grunting when I had to get up.
JAL's flight was nice. There were decent meals and we each got a little screen to watch movies and even play games on. Seriously, the remote control connected to the chair became a video game controller when turned sideways. The games were all pretty weak, of course, but I was still impressed with playing knock-off tetris 30,000 feet in the air. I ended up watching most of The 300 and The Number 23. I also watched some movie that I didn't get the title of. At first, I thought it was in French because everyone was making weird throaty noises like when you say "croissant," but after about five minutes, I realized I should probably have at least recognized a pronoun in there, so I thought it was German. I also thought it was set in Nazi-occupied France, but by the end, I became convinced it was Nazi-occupied Denmark. I'm still not totally sure. I was only getting the movie by reading the Japanese subtitles, which is a little difficult. I still sort of got the gist of the story, which was full of twists and depressing moments where people die at the hands of Nazis. It was also full of not being very good. So, take that, foreign cinema!
Anyway, when we got to Narita, we had to go through customs, which is a ridiculous joke of a process. A customs official asks you (usually just by pointing) if you have a yakkan shomei (drug importation form) and then lets you through. Good security, Japan. Then we had to get our luggage sent to our home prefectures and get on a bus to the hotel. It was absurdly hot and humid, which is pretty much Japan's calling card. The bus took about 1.5 hours and took us to the fabulous Keio Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinjuku means "new inn" and Tokyo means "east capitol" if anyone was wondering. The hotel is simply massive and beautiful, easily the nicest place I have ever stayed. Once we were all checked in, there was nothing required of us, so we were left to find dinner in Tokyo on our own.
Shinjuku is one of those parts of Tokyo that you see in pictures, where everything is lit up and there are people everywhere, just milling about the tiny streets. I ended up running into a girl who had never been to Japan before, and I went with her and her two new friends to dinner. I was the only one there that spoke any Japanese, so they were hoping for me to do things. Little did they know the fact that "experts" on Japan will deny. There is no reason to learn Japanese because everyone speaks English. They usually just speak (incredibly) badly or will just avoid speaking because they are embarrassed by it. Also, most restuarants' menus have pictures of the food, so all you have to do is point and maybe say, "onegai shimasu" if you are feeling saucy. We had some ramen, which was pretty good.
Ramen is a huge thing in Japan, unlike in America, for those who don't know. There are ramen stands/restaurants every five feet or so, all claiming to have the best noodle soup in Japan. They are all lying. All ramen is the same, regardless of what Japan snobs will tell you. It is all noodle soup with some meat in it, in the flavor of your choice. If your choice is miso, spicy, or salt. No, seriously. Salt. I'm not knocking ramen, either. It's good and amazingly filling. You pay lik 500 yen (about 5 dollars or less) for a bowl which looks like you could take it down easily, but turns out to be gigantic when you get down to the last of it. Most people don't finish the entire bowl (including Japanese people, who generally hate waste even more than they supposedly hate Chinese people). I generally try to finish it, and I was successful this time. Like I said, I'm not knocking it; it just annoys me when Japanophiles get all crazy for ramen, which is only Japan's second best form of noodle soup. [Cold] Udon is better; this is a FACT.
After dinner, I ended up walking around, heading to yoyogi (period perioud tree?) kouen (park) in Shibuya (I have no idea what this means), where I stayed before, to see the musicians that hang out there at night. Incidentally, the park is home to a giant hobo town, as well. Unfortunately, as it is the very end of the rainy season here, I got soaking wet. I didn't bother to pick up an umbrella because I was already wet and didn't want the hassle of adding another item to my luggage. Since it was raining, nobody was in the park. At least I got to try a kind of beer I have never had, a (I think new) kind of Yebisu in a green can, that claimed to have extra hops or be super hoppy or something. It was nothing special, but I had to at least try it. Yebisu is one of the more minor brands of beer here. I think it might actually be a subsidiary of another company, but I don't remember. Before, I had only seen two kinds of Yebisu, a normal kind and a dark kind. Both are alright, if I recall correctly. Like I said, it's pretty minor, so not something I had a lot of, but I remember a guy from the program I was on last summer going crazy for the dark stuff. To me, it is mostly notable for the little fat fisherman on the cans and the fact that the sound "ye" has been phased out of Japanese for a long time now, so the characters representing that sound are archaic. The cans have "yebisu" printed in katakana on them, but stores usually have them labelled as "ebisu" due to the characters being out of use, and therefore, not on label-makers.
I got back to the hotel sort of late, as I was forcing myself over the jetlag and didn't want to sleep until it was legitimately nighttime in Japan. That sort of worked. That's all for the first day. I like to keep these posts separated.

Shimane and all

Hey, time for those updates.

Today is my second day of work in "O"-cho. "O"-cho (meaning inside go out cloud, I believe) is a town (cho) of around 16000 people. It used to be two towns, but got combined into one, though it is still basically two isolated towns run by one government, from what I can tell. The part of town that I'm in is called Yokota (side field). It is pretty small. Anyway, I work at the local board of education. I even have my own desk and computer.
Yesterday, all the new Shimane JETs (including me) flew into Izumo (go out cloud) shi (city) airport, and were picked up by our supervisors to be taken to our respective towns. I'm the only new JET in "O", which is sort of out of the way. Most of the other jets were going to Matsue-shi, the capital and largest city of the prefecture, or Hamada, about 2.5 hours from Izumo by car. Matsue is only 200,000 people, which still seems like a lot for someone from Carlinville, but is tiny for Japan. That should give you an idea of what Shimane is like.
I have work at the board of education for the month because it is still summer vacation and all the students are out. Summer vacation is only the one month here, so I'm guessing they schedule the arrival of new JETs now for the purposes of getting them acquainted before any actual work begins. Because of the vacation, I don't have any actual work to do, but attendance is extremely important in Japan, to an extent that Americans would consider absurd. So now my work consists mainly of sitting at my desk, and sometimes talking with Jo, whose desk is across from mine. Jo's from New Zealand and has been here for a year. She used to do the job I'm supposed to do, and now has moved up to middle school. She's been extremely helpful because her Japanese is better than mine, and she's been through pretty much the exact same weird things that I am going through now with the new job. None of the stuff is bad, just general Japanese weirdness. It's amusing how the best-intentioned and most sincere help from Japanese people can sometimes seem confusing and even mildly aggravating to more independence-oriented Westerners. It's also weird how Australia and New Zealand are considered Western. Anyway, more on that in a later post. It's great here already.