Walkin' the Line

We watched the great "Walk the Line" on Friday night.

The ultimate peer pressure: Elvis takes 'em.

Again with the Kobe

Our Nara trip was more accurately our Kobe trip. We had driven down to Akashi [shudder!] with Piotr, then we headed on to Nara while he was off to Osaka. Since most of Nara closes kinda early, we returned to Kobe, did a bit of shopping and attempted to get some tasty Italian food.

Attempted because our Kobe curse popped up. We had been to the restaurant before, but didn't have the name or the number. Ergo, no reservations were made. When we walked in, the chef asked if we had reservations. "No, sorry we don't. Can you fit us in?" "NO. No reservations, no room." Ok. Disappointed, and a bit annoyed with his brusqueness, we start to leave when a waiter catches us, tells us he'll check to see if he can fit us in. He talks to the Chef, who says loudly "The Americans?", "Yes, the Americans.", "NO." The waiter politely says he's really sorry, I tell him it's ok, I grab some business cards so we can make reservations next time.

Now, this little episode really deflated us. Sure, I can understand that not having reservation might be inconvenient, but there was no foul, right? I mean, we didn't sit around, didn't demand a seat, didn't even take 5 minutes of their time. Maybe the chef was having a bad day. And I want to know how he pegged us as Americans. I need to learn to camoflage as Canadian- maybe next time we'll get dinner.

Anyhow, we found a great Chinese restaurant, went to the hotel where we actually slept on a bed, and slept some 10 hours. The next day we met back up with Piotr, ate some fruit on a stick [best thing ever], and headed to that glorious place known as Costco. Loaded up, ate some Costco dogs, and headed home.

Deer?

The weekend of the 22nd Aaron and I headed down to Nara. We were super psyched about the important cultural heritage sites.... ok, really, it was all about the tame deer. As anyone who's spent 5 minutes around me knows, I have an animal problem. You'd think I was 6 years old, "Whoa! Look at the kitty! Who's a pretty kitty, huh? Yeah, you are!" This is not restricted to the normal cute and fuzzy things. So when I heard about the 1000 tame deer wandering around, I was already plotting on how to steal one.

Well, the deer are tame. And freakily domesticated. They will run you down to steal your deer cookies and paper products. And they don't like to be touched. And spring is the season to lose the winter fur, so the chubby little deers all looked like they had the mange. It was hilarious!

As mentioned earlier, Nara is home to several of Japan's National Treasures. Accordingly, there were tons of tourists and school tours all dodging in and out of rampaging deer. Watching toddlers gleefully approach the deer only to run away screaming 15 seconds later is also hilarious.

Sadly, we only made it to a few of the sights. We hit the Big Buddha-- largest bronze Buddha inza whole world! It's very impressive. Definately worth seeing. I also really liked the wooden figures housed behind the Buddha. Oh, right... Ahem, soooo, back in the day, the imperial city was moved after the death of an Emperor. This practice was stopped after they settled in Kyoto [I guess they all just loved it there or something]. Nara was one of the earlier stops, which is why there are so many temples, shrines, statues, etc. The deer are considered to be messengers of the gods, but nowadays they're too busy terrorizing toddlers to pass anything along.

Priorities

The kitchen water heater broke earlier this week. It's been leaking for awhile, and the hose finally snapped off on Sunday. The fix-it guy at my school was able to tape it back together, but sternly told us never to move it or it'll break again. Hmmm, I thought the purpose of the hose was to allow for manueverability.

Last fall Aaron and I painstakingly turned our 2'x2' dirt patch into a rock free zone. But by the time we finished, we were 'zhausted and neglected to even out the plot. Now whenever it rains, our plot tends to lake up toward the front of the plot. About a month ago the secretary came over to view our new cabinets and seemed pretty occupied with our lake-like garden.

And today it all becomes clear. Apparently there's some extra money for my apartment, so the secretary said "How about some soil for your garden?" I ask "What about a new water heater?" [Yes, the soil is only a few bucks, but the water heater isn't outrageous- it's under $100]. Silly me! Money for the apartment doesn't mean appliances! Appliances aren't the apartment. Ok, how about money towards building a little roof over our washing machine [it's outside]. No, that's against the rules! So I settle for soil and paint. Right now the secretary is checking to see if painting is allowed...

Orange Revolution

On Valentine's Day women give chocolates to men [obligation chocolate-- "giri-choco"].

On White Day, the men got it easy and return the favor with lame-o white chocolate and marshmallows [cheapskates!].

Oh no! There's no day for lovers to give each other love tokens! What will Japan do?

.... Introducing Orange Day. The citrus growers think an Orange Day will fill that void. And people say Valentine's Day is a manufactured holiday.

Here is a lovely Orange Day poem, posted by some random person on the japantoday.com site:

My love is like an Orange,
Keeping her pleased is quite a challenge.
One day I'll get my revenge
By taking her out to Stonehenge
And treating her to a lozenge.

Pomp

First week of school:

Monday: am Welcoming ceremony for 2nd and 3rd years
pm Welcoming ceremony for 1st years

Tuesday: Testing [to see what they remember/forgot] -- half day

Wednes: am Health check up
am Introduction ceremony -- 2nd and 3rd years officially greet the 1st years
pm Home room 'n' stuff

Thurs: 2nd and 3rd years have a field trip to a University and some company
1st years have a school orientation

Friday: am Classes [finally]
pm Goodbye ceremony for the teachers who left

Let's see, that makes:

4 ceremonies

half day of testing

2/3 day of actual classes

Organized Chaos

Every year Japanese schools do a big switcheroo. See, teachers usually stay at a school for about 3 years. When their 3 years are up, off to a new school they go. The best part of the deal is that the poor teachers are informed of their new post only a week or so before they go.

So I come back from the States to find that my crazy Kyoto-sensei has been moved, the weird history teacher [who lives across from us and opened his door in his underwear] has also been moved, as has my kinda scary head JTE. Sadly, the super sweet nurse also got moved.

To properly welcome the new teachers, the remaining teachers went absolutely crazy. Yes, they actually cleaned the teacher's lounge! This might require some explanation. See, Japanese schools usually don't employ janitors. Instead, the students are responsible for cleaning the schools. This seems like a good idea except, surprise, surprise, kids don't make for good cleaning.

Therefore, there was a crazy amount of dust covering everything. The desks were all pulled apart, an actual vacuum was employed! Then the teachers up and moved their desks. Craziness ensued.

Home Comforts

And you should see our candy drawer!

Hana Me

It's cherry blossom season. To properly partake in an age-old Japanese tradition, we trained down to Himeji to view the trees near the castle. We secured a spot under a non-cherry tree and chowed down on some sandwiches. We also joined in the lovely public drinking that the Japanese love. No open-container laws makes Hanami [flower viewing] all the more poetic ;)

There were also various performances- taiko drumming, koto [?] playing, etc. The whole area had been wired for sound, so we could hear the playing despite being pretty far from the stage. We bugged out after an hour or so... Too many people, not enough space. Pretty common problem here in Japan. We settled farther away, browsed the vendors [mmm, freshly pounded mochi, tasty!], and broke out the reading material. Ran into quite a few JETs, chatted a bit, overall had a nice day.

So how were the cherry blossoms? Well, they are pretty, but I don't find them awe-inspiring. Plum blossoms have better color and actually have a fragrance. Part of this has a lot to do with UW. The quad is lined with 30 Japanese cherry trees, so I had plenty of flower viewing during my time at Uni. And so can you! If you don't live in Seattle, you can check out their almost live Cherry Cam! And yes, the cherry blossoms look just like the ones over here.

http://www.washington.edu/uwnews/homepage/cherry/cc2006.html


Cherry Cam... brilliant.

Sad thing about UW Japanese cherry trees and Japan Japanese cherry trees .... no cherries, just blossoms.

Zip It!

As I was biking home yesterday, I saw an old man in front of a garden. He was sideways to me, so I could see his profile. I noticed his hands were jiggling in front of his fly. Then he turns around abruptly [nearly walking right into me], zipping his pants. Lovely. But there's more! Another old man was crossing the street towards him, with his fly unzipped and his index and middle finger tucked inside. Why did the old men cross the street? To pee in the garden.

In case any of you think this is waaaay out in the country side, well, you're wrong. This is 200 yards from my school, 20 yards from a major intersection, and across the street from a grocery store.

Fervantly wishing to avoid Oyaji pee....

We're Back!

Settling back into life in Japan after our blissful 2 weeks in Washington. Let's see-

Caught up on Sopranos? Check
Got naked at the onsen? Check
Eaten at Shijaku [sushi]? Check
Been bored at school? Check

Yep, Japan life is back to normal.

How was Washington, you ask? Well...

It was exactly what we needed! It was great, full of food and friends and family. Not much sleep, but why sleep when you could be picking out books? Or drinking amazing coffee? Or hanging with friends you haven't seen in 8 months?

Was it hard to leave? Well, kinda. See, we've always planned on 2 years [unless we absolutely hated it], and so I didn't feel ready to call it quits on Japan yet. This set amount of time made it relatively easy to come back. But in the short 2 weeks I got really spoiled. Imagine! I enjoyed diversity of all sorts- food, people, music, stores... My least favorite thing in Japan [after the lack of insulation] is the homogeneity- food, culture, fashion... it seems there are about half a dozen approved choices and everyone draws from those to create their own food, culture, fashion...

But I feel a great relief after coming back. I needed to touch base- with people, country. I used to feel that way in Seattle, when I hadn't been to Richland for too long. There's just something about Richland that grounds me. Now I think it's shifted to Washington in general. I feel more emotionally ready for the next 16 months. The stress and annoyance has dissipated. I feel centered.