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visitor since August 8th, 2002.

Stay tuned for more information... This page is currently under construction but will eventually contain the stories of my travels throughout the year as well as a glimpse into my daily Japanese life.

August 2002

August 9, 2002

I opened my bank account today. Misoguchi-sensei took my to the Shizuoka Bank and helped me open one. The banks here are quite different from the ones in Canada. You take a number and wait. While you wait, they have music playing and a television for you to watch. Then, before they finish dealing with you, they start on someone else's request. It took about a half hour, maybe 45 minutes, to open an account and after waiting for so long I was excited to see that I had a choice of bankbooks and bankcards. 3 choices in all: one conservative, offical looking one with the Shizuoka Bank logo on it that was a burgundy sort of colour; one that had a single anime of Little Bobdog; and one with 3 Little Bobdogs on it. Needless to say I got the one with the 3. It was so cute but it's normal in Japan to have anime creatures on EVERYTHING. Fans, handkerchiefs, bank cards, Visa cards, etc., etc. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get one on your driver's license. Misoguchi-sensei was quite excited to see that I had a 2000\ banknote. These are new and she had never seen one before.

Misoguchi-sensei herself is a little interesting. She's got quite the strut going on and enjoys wearing tight, trendy clothing. She's pretty enough, but I think she thinks she's attractive. She wears makeup (which not a lot of the teachers do) and talks in this coquettish, quiet, sort of sultry kind of voice. She teaches English and is the head of the library department. She also has a thing for my hair. And told me that I should wear it down because it looks better like that�E

Watanabe-sensei brought me some things that I needed to school today. Like a knife and fork (well, she brought 2 forks), a mug for my drinks at school, a bar of soap, an alarm clock, and some chopsticks. She's very sweet. I'm not sure what she's trying to say by giving me soap, but every little bit helps. She told me to make a list of the things I need and don't have in my apt for her to post to the rest of the staff and see what comes up. So I requested an iron, computer desk, and some side tables. We'll see how it goes. And if it doesn't, there's always the hundred yen store.

This afternoon, Josh and I went over to Fujieda, the next town over for a little bit of shopping. Wanda works from about 3 to 8-ish, so she's usually away in the afternoon/evening. We went to a store that's similar to an It Store in Canada, but has more things. It has the whole Halloween/tacky crap things but also has makeup, stationary, purses/bags, cheap jewelry, picture frames, etc., etc -- I guess a Winners mixed with a It Store minus the clothing. I bought a purse for 1900\, a wallet for 1900\, hair elastics for 100\, and a Trainspotting poster for 980\. I normally wouldn't buy a Trainspotting poster, but it's one of Dan's favourite movies and anything that reminds me of him or that I know he would like, I find myself buying. After the It Store wannabe, we went to Espot. A Walmart like store with a McDonald's in it. I bought laundry detergent, bleach (for cleaning), and a power bar. They have a diverse selection at this store. There's a grocery section, a pet section (EXPENSIVE puppies and kittens -- saw a golden lab pup like Josh's Boomer), automotive section, and pricey, pricey, pricey section. The pricey section sells things like Rolex watches, Gucci handbags, and everything brand name you could think of. Quite the adventure nonetheless.

Tonight Josh hosted�@a gaijin party at The Skin Flute in Fujieda. It's a predominantly foreigner bar and plays English music and has pretty good drinks. The drinks range from 400¥ to, I guess, about 600¥ or so. They have CC and other North American spirits. I had a CC&G, gin and tonic, coke, fuzzy navel, and a glass of wine. The glass of wine sucked royally, it was a slight bit sweet, and came in this tiny little flute glass for 400¥. Bloody ridiculous if you ask me. In a way it kind of sucks having Josh and Wanda here. Every time I see them lovey-dovey it makes me miss Dan even more. L I met some cool people tonight, though. Mostly other JETs, but it's nice to know they live closer than I thought they did.

I used the train system for the first time today as well. Pretty easy. As long as you know where you're going and you're cool with the whole direction thing. That's about all I have to say about that.

Tomorrow Josh and Wanda and I are going to the beach. Should be nice. More tomorrow.

August 10, 2002

This jet-lag crap is killing me. After being partially drunk when I went to bed last night (maybe around midnight or so), I still ended up waking up before 8 am. I tidied my apt a little bit (things still aren't in order and little bits and pieces are just lying around everywhere) and then I thought I'd give Dan a call and see if he was actually in. Turns out he was, but he was on his way out for a weekend with the Darrin to go visit Neil in London. So, even though I had a 20 minute calling card (that was free from the Tokyo orientation, I might add) we only spent about 8 minutes talking (my phone has a time counter on it -- it's Japanese, and in Japan, you get charged per minute based on how far away the person lives from you -- similar to the UK). Then he had to go. :-( Not being able to talk to him is not fun. When I already miss him to death, when I finally end up hooking up with him on the phone, it's upsetting to be left when I need to talk. And that's the thing -- I need to talk. It's so lonely here.

And today was hard. I have been in Japan for a week. Josh and Wanda have been great... but today I really felt like doing nothing. We went to Shizunami Beach today (about half an hour away) on the Pacific Ocean. What can I say about Japanese beaches? They are nothing like Cuba's. The sand is a dark, I'm guessing, volcanic sand that is very fine in texture in parts (almost a clay) and rocky in others. For some strange reason they enjoy bulldozing the beaches here, so even if you go every week to the same beach, it could be a different shoreline you see. And it's not from beach migration either (thanks again, Ingrid). They move the sand around. I'm not sure what the reason behind it is�Emaybe to prevent beach migration. Who knows. But it was very, very busy. I took some pictures. People EVERYWHERE. That's not really how I like to experience my beaches. I would have liked to have gone further down the beach where there was hardly anyone, but Josh and Wanda said you can't walk out very far there, it's only shallow for a bit and then it's pretty deep. I always thought the point of a beach was to swim�Ebut I guess not everyone agrees with me. The water was cold. And murky. And Josh informed me to keep an eye out for jellyfish. It's supposedly jellyfish season and Josh was stung by one last weekend. Ouch. That's gotta suck. From lack of sleep, I ended up falling asleep on the beach. It was hot. I had no sunscreen. I'm a little tingly at the moment on the forehead and cheeks. We stayed there for about 3 hours. Then it was time to go home.

They dropped me off, I had a shower, ate some dinner and then rode my bike down to the Shimada JR Train Station (the normal slow train -- about the speed of a regular passenger train in Ontario -- a little slower than the GO Train). There, I met some people from the Friendship Association of Shimada and some other JETs from Kakegawa (a city just down the way, opposite of Fujieda). Most of them speak pretty good English and I even learned a few new phrases tonight... problem being, I can't recall them at the moment. We went to see a fireworks display. Okay. Fireworks. Nice thing to do in Canada on the few occasions you can get them. In Japan, summer is basically fireworks season. And WOW. Take the best fireworks display you've ever seen. Now take the finally of that fireworks display. Now extend that finale for TWO HOURS! It was amazing! They set some of it to music, there were probably ten and twenty going off at one time incessantly. It was in the river gorge, I guess you'd call it. Right now it's a pathetic meandering stream/river (sorry Ingrid, can't remember the discharge requirements for a river) but during typhoon season, the whole gorge is filled and sometimes flooded. I'm hoping to take a picture of the before and after of the gorge for you all to see. The fireworks were going off on either side of the gorge and we were right close up. They laid down tarps with numbers and I guess the Friendship Association had tickets or something, because I just followed the crowd to one of the front row tarps. It was the best seat in the house... kind of. It was great, but the debris flown from the canisters kept spraying us. I guess it would be similar to flack??? Maybe??? Am I thinking of th I also discovered today that I take literacy WAY for granted. WAY WAY WAY. I decided to begin tackling the Japanese language because this walking around and not being able to read or understand everything is beginning to piss me off. First, Japanese is made up of 3 scripts: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Kanji is the complex Chinese-like characters. Katakana and hiragana are both phonetically arranged, but have different characters (for some stupid reason). Hiragana is the curvilinear script where everything kind of flows while katakana is a liner script with things that resemble squares, triangles, rectangles, etc., etc., etc. all throughout the script. Foreign names are written in katakana. So, here I am making cue cards for all these characters that represent all these sounds. I decided to take a break and do my first sun salutation (yoga) since arriving in Japan. Riding your bike around all day tends to tense up your thigh muscles, so they needed some stretching. After that, I was in my bedroom on my bed, reading my new Trainspotting poster with Ewan McGregor's whole rant from the beginning (or end, I can't remember) of the movie. As I was reading it I clued in that I was basically doing it subconsciously (recognizing the characters �Eletters �Eand piecing the phonetics together) and that this is what the Japanese do with all of their characters. The only difference is that when I started reading English, I knew the language already. It was just a matter of recognizing the word you already knew. It may sound like a royally stupid explanation and many of you may be thinking, Well, duh! But it's very strange. We really do take literacy hugely for granted. I think this year is going to be a whole bunch of "A-ha moments".

Everyday at 5 pm there is a little song that plays over the city's PA system... it's really cute. Well, cute for now -- I'm sure it is bound to become annoying sometime soon. I wish I was musically inclined to write out all the notes and take it home with me.

August 13, 2002

A few days ago my supervisor, Watanabe-sensei, posted a list of things I didn’t have and needed on the staff room fridge. Things like an iron, a kettle (but I think I might have one), a computer desk�Eanything to save me money and as she says, “Japanese people have all sorts of things that they want to give away and have two of everything�E I think they get charged if they want to dispose of something that is too big or does not fit into the garbage classifications (burnable, non-burnable, glass). So today one of the teachers brought me in an iron. It’s really quite a nice iron too. He also wrote out all the buttons as they are on the iron and translated them to English for me.

I ordered an ADSL modem today from NTT (the Japanese equivalent of Bell Canada, I guess). It was very confusing and I’m not sure if they even know if it’ll work with my laptop in my apartment, but oh well, they’re sending it to me anyway. A modem and splitter are being sent to my school on August 19th and the ADSL line (I guess) is being installed on the 21st. So I could be wired by then!!! I really REALLY hope it works with minimal confusion. The whole Internet system here is confusing. I have to get the modem from NTT, but I guess they don’t act as a service provider as well, so I have to go to somewhere else for a provider. This is basically how it breaks down (from what I understand):

Installation = 2800¥ (one time deal)
Contract fee = 800¥ (one time deal)
Modem & Splitter = 490¥ a month to rent
ADSL connection at 1.5 Mbps = 2900¥ a month

And then I pay the provider whatever�Ewhich SHOULD be about 450¥ a month unlimited (I don’t really know why it’s some sort of cheap deal somehow, not really sure). So every month it should be 450¥ + 490¥ + 2900¥ = 3840¥ a month or C$51.20 plus the 5% sales tax in Japan. If it were C$100 a month, I wouldn’t care. When you’re getting paid 300,000¥ a month, 4000¥ is nothing.

One of the women from the Friendship Association (Yoko-san �Eyes, like Yoko Ono) owns 2 pharmacies in town. I went to buy some dental floss and baby powder. Dental floss because even though the Japanese seem obsessed with dental hygiene (yet they still seem to have really bad breath) I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere and baby powder because this heat is horrendous and I desperately need to wax my eyebrows. And no wonder dental floss is hard to find�EChrist, the freakin�Ething was 760¥ for a regular sized thing of waxed dental floss. For those of you who haven’t caught up with the conversion yet, that is TEN DOLLARS CANADIAN for 45.7 m of waxed dental floss. All I know is that it better be mint flavoured�Ebut I somehow don’t think so. If any of you have an urge to buy a huge quantity of dental floss and have some left over, feel free to mail me some. A definite requirement for the luggage after Christmas. The baby powder was also a little pricey �E270¥ for a little bottle of it. But, hey, it’s Johnson and Johnson. Stuff I’m used too.

On my way to the pharmacy, there was a fabulous smell of bread in the street. I found myself a bakery. It’s in the “basement�Eof the 100¥ store/Super Big Grocery (yes, that’s the grocery store’s name) and it smells sooooooooooooooo good. I didn’t buy anything, I just went in and browsed. They had things that looked like hotdogs in a pastry topped with mustard, ham and scrambled egg in a pastry topped with ketchup, a French bread stick, a really long loaf of bread for some reason, raisin bread, and all sorts of dumplings. All for reasonable prices. Well, I thought they were reasonable. Then I went into the grocery store for, if nothing else, a break from the heat. I ended up coming home with salt, pepper, cinnamon, bananas (5 for only 158¥), edon noodles, chocolate covered almonds (I think anyway), cookies that look like the Peek Freans Digestive cookies, salad dressing that looks like a country herb oil vinaigrette (for my noodles), and a 2 kg bag of rice. Japanese rice is sooooooooooo good. I’m not sure if it’s “basmati�Erice or what, but it doesn’t matter. All I know is that it tastes like butter without any butter on it. I have a rice cooker (which I don’t know how to use yet) so that’ll help�Econsidering I can’t read the directions on how to prepare it.

My other adventure was going to the Celadon Caf�E I met Saori, one of the sister’s that runs the place, who speaks very very good English. I have a feeling it’s a gaijin (foreigner) hangout because there were about 2 other non-Japanese people in there. I had a bagel with blueberry jam and cream cheese and a iced cappuccino for 780¥. Yes, only 20¥ more than my freakin�Edental floss. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it. So, it was still about C$10. It took about 10 minutes to get my food but I think they baked the bagel fresh for me (in the microwave). The bagel was served with a pretty good helping of cream cheese (probably full fat, because it tasted very creamy) and a miniscule amount of blueberry jam with about 5 or 6 full blueberries. With the bagel came a small side salad (lettuce, some other lettuce-like thing, and 15 corn kernels in a Italian-like dressing) and potato chips. The bagel itself was a little on the bland side, but the chips and salad were good. The iced cappuccino was very very strong. I wanted to ask for some sugar, but I didn’t want to seem rude. When I finished my bagel plate, I noticed there was a little sealed cup of a thick, clear liquid called “Gum Syrup�E I thought it was my dessert. After choking back half of the iced cappuccino, alternating between that and the water that was also served to me, I opened the gum syrup and began sipping. It was incredibly sweet and then I clued in. A-ha moment #2. The gum syrup is the sugar for the iced cappuccino!!! Which is so smart because you don’t have to worry whether or not the sugar is dissolved in your drink. So I poured the remainder of the little cup into the remainder of the cappuccino and it was soooooooooooo much better!! Oh well, we’ll know for next time.

I’m going to be spending tonight getting ready for the Shizuoka Prefectural ALT Orientation in Kakegawa (a few cities over). It’s from Wednesday to Friday which kind of sucks because we’ll be away from our cities for the Obon festival. It’s kind of a Halloween only a little more spiritual and revered. They decorate their houses and burn incense to welcome back the spirits of their ancestors. From what one of my English teachers tells me, it’s the largest festival in Japan, second only to the New Years festival. She invited me over to her house to see her decorations, but I’ll be in Kakegawa, so I had to turn down her offer.

I think the orientation is basically going to be teacher’s college in 3 days. The workshops deal with things like behavioural management, team teaching (what we will be doing with the English teacher’s in our schools), school relations, yadayadayada. Then on the final day we have to do our own presentation all about us. Basically what we’ll be saying to the kids as our introduction of ourselves. It’ll be nice to be around English speaking people again. But at the same time, when I’m with them I feel like I have to be “on�E Telling them what a “wonderful time I’m having�Eand crap like that.

The little kitty is still in my backyard. I think it’s her home. I almost bought some kitty food when I was at the grocery store.

August 17, 2002

The Kakegawa Orientation was interesting. Rather boring, actually. It was workshop after workshop after workshop. I got to meet all of the people working in the prefecture over the year. Most of them seem fairly nice. A lot of them, though, seem to want to relive university�Eall they want to do is get drunk and have slumber parties and stay up late. I felt like I was in high school again with all these catty people. Some of them are from Los Angeles. Well, my god, you’d think someone appointed them fashion queens of the earth�Etalk about shallow.

I didn't really learn a lot from the seminars. Just that my school is a low to mid level school and the kids don't want to learn English. The more games I plan for them, the better. Try and make it as fun as possible. And the bigger the fool you are in front of the students, the more respect you'll get. Example: during my self-introduction, if I play any music, the best thing for me to do is sing along and dance around the classroom like an idiot -- the kids will love it, supposedly. Rather than thinking, "How uncool is she?", they'll be thinking more along the lines of, "Wow, she's great!"

The food was horrible. It was completely and totally Japanese. Rice at every meal. Fish in practically everything. Okay, I like fish. I quite enjoy fish. But when EVERYTHING tastes like fish I'm not a big fan of that. At breakfast one morning, we were all excited for bread and butter. We slapped the butter on pretty thick and all of us were looking forward to it so much... problem was: it wasn't butter. None of us had any idea what it was. It left a film of grease all over our mouths. I think it was lard. It didn't taste like butter; it tasted like nothing. If the bread wasn't bad enough by itself, this made it ten times worse. We started eating in the cafe upstairs. The cafeteria food was included in the price (4000\ for 3 days, our schools are reimbursing us) so the extra expenditure to have real food (ham and egg sandwiches for 330\) was fine with me.

At Kakegawa, I had my first communal bathing experience. It was technically an onsen of sorts. Onsens are the Japanese versions of spas. Some onsens are elaborate with full service (massages, Jacuzzis, body treatments) and others are your basic ones with just the communal showers and a hot tub without jets (usually heated geothermally via hot springs). You shower first, lather up and rinse off and then you get into the tub and soak. A lot of us were uneasy about communal showering (you're not allowed to wear anything into the bathing area), but once you're in there and you're busy showering yourself, you don't really notice everyone else around you. I probably looked like I was checking everyone out because I was just nonchalantly looking around... but I couldn't see anything since I didn't have my glasses on. I didn't get into the tub -- it was way too hot as it was -- and I was enjoying the warm shower way too much on its own. It was nice to have warm water again.

One of the workshops was about Health and Safety in the Shizuoka Prefecture while we’re here. Incorporated into that was the whole subject of earthquakes. Holy shitting my pants afterwards!!! Turns out Japan is on the joints of 4 tectonic plates. 2 of those plates (the Eurasian and the Philippine) overlap directly through the Shizuoka prefecture. Major earthquakes happen in this area every 100-150 years; the last major one was 146 years ago. A quake 10 times as damaging as Kobe's in 1995 is expected to occur in the prefecture in the near future. It is expected to reach a magnitude of 8.0 (at least) on the Richter scale and to last for more than a minute. To make things worse, if the earthquake doesn't kill us, the tsunamis could -- and all of the earth movement will most likely cause Mount Fuji to erupt. So my choices of death are: earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic lava... hmmmmm... not sure what my #1 choice will be.

Speaking of natural disasters�EI think a typhoon is heading for Japan. I was watching the news the other day during the weather forecast (I can kinda make out the weather forecasts with all the pictures and numbers and things) and on the satellite image maps, it looks like a typhoon/tropical storm is heading for us. I'm not sure how far away it is, but the weather for the next week was sunny or partially cloudy all over Japan with highs of 31-33°C.

Today I went to the beach with Dame (a girl from Britain that I met at the fireworks last week -- she's a 3rd year JET), her boyfriend Garreth, and a guy named Mike (another first year JET from San Francisco). The waves were so big we couldn't swim. It was a nicer beach than the one I went to last week with Josh and Wanda, with softer sand and less rocks. The waves must have been at least 2 m high and we were in a bay�Eabout half a kilometer out, there were breakwater blocks and they weren't helping much. Dame says typhoons are strange things -- there's usually one day of really bad rain and wind, and the next day it's beautiful out.

I tried waxing myself tonight with the waxing kit Nat left me. It's a hard wax kit, without the strips and, well, it doesn't work very well. I was quite disappointed. I ended up tweezing most of my eyebrows (and I wasn't about to try my underarms). I figure I'll try to hunt down a waxing place here and if it's not too pricey, just go there.

Josh, Wanda and I, along with an Irishman named Eoin (he was never a JET, but had lived in Japan for almost 4 years and is married to a Japanese woman) went to the Skin Flute Too tonight. It's the Shimada counterpart of its original in Fujieda that Josh took all the new JETs to last week. It's not as large as the one in Fujieda, but still nice. I had some pizza. It was really, really good. It should be for an 8-inch pizza for 900\. The pizza here is on a thin crust, almost fajita-like, with lots of yummy things on top. I had cheese, salami, ham, green peppers, and some spices. I'm sure there was a tomato sauce of some sort, but I didn't even notice. It was really good.

Then I came home and tried calling the parents (Dan would still be at work) -- it was about 1:00 pm in Canada). They weren't home, so I reluctantly went to bed.

August 18, 2002

Today was the day that the typhoon was supposed to come. It rained. It was a little windy. But if this is a typhoon, they're pathetic. I'm sure it's just some rainy weather and not an actual typhoon. However, it sounds like the wind is picking up at the moment, so maybe the typhoon will occur over night and tomorrow will be a beautiful day -- or I'll wake up tomorrow and there'll be a typhoon happening outside my window.

I called home today. Parents are doing well. Then I called Dan. Turns out he was trying to call me while I was on the phone with my parents. By the way things have been going, I think I'll only be able to call home/Dan once a week. That's okay, though. Once a week for an hour will be good. With my phone card, I get over 200 minutes for 2000¥. Pretty decent, I think. It works out to 17\ a minute calling home -- 23 cents a minute, in Canadian money. And the landline charge is included because I call a toll-free number first.

I cleaned my fridge today. And my floors. And I did my kitchen counter�E The counter is aluminum and it was pretty gross, so I cleaned it and the sink. I was sweating like you wouldn't believe. Buckets were pouring off my forehead. It was the coolest day yet, though. With the breeze from the typhoon, I opened up all the windows, aired out the apartment, and took advantage of the breeze by cleaning.

Wanda and I went downtown today and had a coke and some donuts at Mr. Donuts -- according to someone at the Kakegawa orientation, Mr. Donuts is the only coffee shop in Japan that offers bottomless cups of coffee. I had the French Angel -- basically a French crueller filled with whipped cream, one half dipped in chocolate, and the other half dipped in sugar. The chocolate tasted like crap. The coke was good. After going to Mr. Donuts, we went to the confectionary across the street to see what goodies they had. They had lots of goodies, but WAY to pricey for us.

Then, I committed my first act of dishonesty in Japan. We ventured further down the street to a Bentley's sort of store that sold handbags, backpacks, and such. I need a backpack for quick trips, grocery shopping, regular shopping, etc., etc. This biking thing is great, but my basket can only hold so many things. So I briefly looked at the street display, designed to lured shoppers into the store. There was a K-Swiss backpack, regularly 7500\ (approx. C$100) on for 950\. Being the smart shopper I am, I snatched it up and brought it to the counter. There were two saleswomen, one rang up the sale and the other was going on and on about something in Japanese. I think it had to do with their return policy. Unlike North America, very, very few stores in Japan allow you to return things. Very few even allow you to exchange things. You can't try anything on, and you can't return it if it doesn't fit when you get home. I personally do not understand this, but I guess it works for them. So the girl ringing up the sale shows me the bill and I owe her 1029\ (5% sales tax). I give her a 2000\ banknote. She changes the bill, passes it to the woman giving me the whole spiel in Japanese (who is also bagging my purchase -- real tag team approach to sales), and she gives me the money. She gives me back a 1000\ banknote plus a hole shitload of change. Before it registers, Wanda and I leave the store and I have already put my change in my change compartment. Then I realize I have a 1000\ banknote in my hand and I just put a whole bunch of change in my change compartment. I have no idea what the exact amount of money the woman gave back to me, but I think it was over 1600\ (there were lots of 100\ coins on the top of my change compartment). So I got a brand new K-Swiss backpack for less than 400\. :-) When I brought it home I discovered a small gape in one of the seams -- I guess the backpack was on sale because of this seam. The material isn't ripped or anything, it just looks like the sewer missed a small bit of the fabric when they were stitching it. Oh well, for 400\ (if not less), I'm not going to complain. The rest of the backpack is in good condition -- sturdy straps and all that.

I think there are bugs crawling on me. I always feel like there's some on me somewhere that I can't see and can't kill. The imaginary bugs never used to bite -- I think they're beginning to. I have itchy spots on my skin, but there's no evidence of a bite. Maybe I have some imaginary bug bites too. I'm pretty sure I have something crawling through my hair. I think the purchase of new pillows and a washing of the linens is in order.

Ryan (another JET that lives in Shimada, from New York) invited me over to his house tonight for dinner. We're both bored out of our minds being cooped up in our apartments with not much else to do. I was planning on going over there after I got home from being out with Wanda, but I wasn't sure what to make of this weather. So I stayed in and we decided to do it sometime during the week, when we REALLY don't have much else to do. I watched Dirty Dancing while I stayed home. I never realized what a horrible movie it was. The acting in it is terrible! The storyline isn't even much to shake a stick at.

Well, it's bedtime for me. I don't really want to go to work tomorrow. *sigh* But I'm going to.

August 20, 2002

I CAN READ PIZZA IN JAPANESE!!!! At least, I think it's pizza... I bought some �gdeluxe stick pizzas�h today at the grocery store. Just under 400\ for 3. When they say �gdeluxe�h they mean it. I've got a 8 inch long pizza stick with two slices of pepperoni, cheese, shredded green peppers, and corn. Corn? What the hell? On pizza? I think the corn here is pricey, so the Japanese feel they're getting their money's worth if they buy something that has corn in it/on it/mixed in with it, whatever. So, back to me reading pizza. I've been tending not to buy things that have instructions. Why? Cuz I can't read the damn things. There's 2 pictures on the back of this pizza package. I think one's a microwave and one's a toaster oven. Problem being: I have no clue still how to use my microwave. It's all in Japanese and the thing acts as my oven. I can bake a cake, toast bread, fry fish, yadayadayada all in this microwave. So how am I supposed to do pizza in it? From what I can make out, I'm supposed to turn the microwave up to 250C and bake it for 3 minutes (I'm guessing the microwaves are also convection ovens). I look at the other picture, it says 6 minutes. I look at my toaster oven. There's a time chart on it. One of which says 5-6 minutes with some characters beside it. I look at the package. Look at the toaster oven. The characters match! I'm guessing it means pizza. It wasn't bad, either. Not great, but compared to what I've been eating lately, it was pretty tasty. I also bought milk today. Should be an interesting venture. I'm praying it's like milk from back home. If it is, we're in trouble, because they only come in 1L cartons.

Speaking of milk. At the orientation last week, some Americans were asking me questions about Canada. I guess Canada is the only place that has 4L of milk in 3, 1.33L bags. They asked me if we really had milk in bags. I never thought anything of it. Something else that's solely Canadian.

And these fucking spiders. Christ, I swear they come back to fucking life. I have a little �gfriend�h that lives in my toilet room. No matter how hard I try, he comes back. And I swear to God, it's the same one. I try not to smash them on my tatami mats, but I've given up on waiting for them to get off of them. They will look like a spider graveyard in no time. What the hell am I going to do when the cockroaches start trying to find warm places (i.e. my apartment) to over winter? Jesus Christ.

I'm trying to find a bakery that sells whole wheat bread. If the white bread here was similar to the white bread at home, I could deal with it. But it's not. It's disgusting, really. Pick up a piece of cardboard and chow down, because that is the bread here. Even the butter/margarine here isn't the same, so it doesn't make up for the pathetic bread. Kasuya-sensei told me about a bakery somewhere in Shimada. She said it was a little hard to explain, so she may take me there tomorrow morning. Turns out her and her husband have some rice fields near their house. When she was younger, she helped out with the rice. She invited me over to her house sometime to see the rice up close when it flowers. Supposedly they are really pretty, tiny little flowers that turn into the grain. Rice is usually harvested in October. The Japanese sure know how to spread the wealth -- rice harvest in October and tea harvest in April. Almost a perfect 6 months apart from each other...

Yesterday I met Nishino-sensei and Yokoyama-sensei. They are both part-time teachers with Shimasho (the school I work at). Nishino-sensei is really, really sweet. She had all sorts of questions about Canada and life in North America. She was asking what I thought of Japan and how it compared to back home. What the difference is between the US and Canada (my predecessor -- the ALT before me -- was American) and all sorts of things that we're just used to. Such as, acting out the quotes. You know, when we put up our hands and bend our two first fingers to �gact out the quotes�h (Dr. LeClair did this ALL the time in his geography classes). She was asking me why we do it, and I couldn't even give her an explanation! Even as I was trying to explain it to her, I was acting out quotes with no reason about why I did it just at that moment. Nishino-sensei is a little older, she has two daughters – 19 and 17, but she still looks quite young. Hell, they all do! Yokoyama-sensei actually IS young, I think. She's trying to get her teaching certificate. If she's successful, she'll be able to be hired on full-time. She seems sweet too. Very thin, but tall. Height is measured by centimetres here. I'm 165 cm (as it says on my driver's license -- 5'5"ish) and she's 170. Maybe, 5'8". But no more than 100 pounds, I'd say. Very thin. I feel like I should be giving you more details about what everyone looks like... what am I going to say? Black hair, brown eyes for everyone?

I finished my book the other day. Night Chills by Dean Koontz. Not bad. Basically the only book of his I hadn't read yet. I'm not a reader. Haven't been since I was about 13 or 14 (after reading Koontz's Voice of the Night). During university, I had enough to read, I didn't read for fun (except the occasional Harry Potter -- because it was light, easy, and a fun escape from boring textbooks). I read Night Chills in about a week. Which may not be much for most readers, but for me, it was a miracle. Almost 400 pages in a week. Now I've moved on to Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True (thanks, Gillian!). I started it yesterday. I'm on page 143. What's wrong with me? That's a way to make someone read... take them completely out of an English setting. I read books and write these journals to keep myself sane, I think. To make sure my English ability doesn't completely deteriorate like they keep promising us it will. We'll be talking to our students in half English... leaving complete words out to make it easier for them. Me: Robyn. You: Class. That sort of thing.

I figured out how to get warm water in my shower today too. Yesterday Nishino-sensei looked through the owner's manual with me and translated what some of the buttons meant. She sent me on my way to try and get it by myself and it worked! There's so many dials and crap, it would have taken me a lot longer to figure it out by myself. I'm still paranoid of blowing myself up with the gas heater, though. It's not really a constant flow of warm water either. If I turn it to the hottest water I can get, you can hear the gas ignite and heat the water. The water gets pretty warm. Then the gas shuts off. And the water gets colder. And when it reaches a certain colder temperature, the gas ignites again to re-heat the water... it's a constant cycle and rather annoying, if you ask me. But hey, I now have warm water.

While I was in the shower this morning, my phone rang. Thinking it was my family or Dan, I hopped out of the shower (in mid-shampoo) and ran to the phone (dripping all over my tatami mats -- a big no-no I hear). It was some guy muttering something to me in Japanese asking me what apartment I lived in. I said, "Uh, who is this?" Like hell I'm giving out my apartment number to just anyone. He eventually got frustrated and hung up. Pissed off, I got back into the shower and finished. Then after I got dressed, around 8 am, a woman called. Saying she was from some sort of courier service and had a package for me and needed my apartment number. She also wanted to make sure I'd be home this afternoon for the delivery guy. I was so excited; I was getting a package! Was it from my mom? Dan? My friend Nat? Anything from North America would have been FABULOUS? It was none of the above. A damn English version of the East Japan phone book. Yippee for me.

My cat in the backyard hasn't been there for the past few days. But I've discovered a really cute kitten. She's really pretty, but very timid and skittish. Maybe...

I have an absolutely beautiful amber moon outside my window right now. In twelve hours, it'll be the same moon you'll be looking at. Only without the mountains, ocean, tea and rice fields below it. And no goddamn cicada relatives. And spiders you can actually kill. *sigh* Pluses and minuses to everything.

August 21, 2002

Kasuya-sensei took me to the bakery/deli today. The owners were very nice and let me try a few of their deli meats... one of which was their award-winning Salmon Wurst. Are you thinking what I was thinking? Yeah, a slab of ham with some salmon interlaced in it? Award-winning? Are you kidding? Surprisingly, it makes a not-bad combination. Not a knock-me-over-fabulous combination... but not bad. A little too heavy on the salmon, if you ask me. They didn't have whole-wheat bread in either. Supposedly the Japanese aren't big bread eaters during the summer, but he'll begin baking whole-wheat loaves in the fall. As the story goes, once the calendar says summer is over (September 21st) everyone suddenly stops wearing short sleeves and goes into long sleeves... even if it's 25C outside. Just because the calendar says it's no longer summer. I guess it's the same thing with bread. Another month without decent bread. Damnit. While I was there I bought some proscuitto-like meat. Everyone was warning me it was very spicy and that maybe I should try a bit before committing myself to the 200g (450\/100g, mind you). So I tried some. Christ, it was the best thing I've had since I've been here (besides McDonald's, of course)!! It actually had TASTE to it! Even though it was a little pricey, they put in all the extras for you... vacuum-sealed 100g for me (so it will last longer) and put the other 100g in one of those Styrofoam dishes and sealed that for me too. Nice people. I'll definitely go back for the bread, no matter what the price is.

After the bakery/deli, we went to pick up Kasuya-sensei's pictures at a camera shop. There, they give you all the extras too. A "free" Hello Kitty photo album with the development of a role of film. (There' an example for acting out the quotes!!!) I wandered into the digital camera section and she translated to the salesman that I would like an English digital camera... sooooooooooooooo...

I bought a digital camera today!!! :-D I am the happiest girl in the world. I got a good deal on it too... It's a Nikon CoolPix 885 -- 3.2 Megapixels, 3 x optical zoom, 4 x digital zoom, 12 scene modes (whatever those are)... and that's all I can make out from the box. It has English options and menus, but the CD-Rom and manuals are in Japanese. I'll be writing to Nikon shortly to ask them to send me English versions. I can take pictures and transfer them to my computer, but I haven't the faintest clue about how to make movies. It was regularly 92,000\ (MSRP) and it was on sale for 40,000\ -- 42,000\ with tax... or $560 Cdn. Josh found it on Amazon.com for $500US -- which translates to about C$780, plus 15% tax... so I saved myself almost C$340. The camera itself is pretty easy to use and with the aid of the manual's pictures, I've derived how to charge and insert the battery, insert the memory card, and transfer the pictures to my computer. A picture's worth a thousand words. Especially in Japanese.

This evening Ryan and I went out for dinner in Fujieda to some sort of Japanese restaurant (go figure). It wasn't bad. I tried some of his salmon sashimi (thin slices of raw salmon on shredded white Japanese radish). I think I prefer salmon cooked in salt pork. Mmmmmmmmm... salt pork. *drooling* I had some sort of stir fry noodle dish thing with chicken and pork. Pretty good. Then afterwards, we went over to the confectionary and bought ourselves some dessert. I had a white chocolate layer cake of some sort and he had a chocolate mousse/banana thing. Okay... get THIS for extras. We asked for it to go. They put our desserts in separate boxes, similar to a Tim Horton's 20 Timbit box, but a little smaller (mmmmmmmmmmmm... Tim Horton's). Inside the box, a few things were added. There was a cardboard circle thing to stop the cake from tipping over, a napkin, a plastic spoon, and -- get this -- a freakin' ICE PACK! They put an ICE PACK in the box to keep it cool. Ryan and I don't get it. What's with all the excess packaging? Did they ever think that if they STOPPED it with the packaging, they wouldn't have such a garbage problem? Shit! It's so obvious to us, but they don't seem to get it. *shaking head* It's going to be an ongoing battle for the next year... I can see it already.

I got my ADSL working! Woo-hoo for me! I was online chatting to a few people and my sister's old roommate/good friend Michele was online. She's a JET too, living in Hyogo Prefecture, about an hour away from Kobe, maybe 250 kms east of me. She has a webcam so she showed me around her apartment. I could see her, but I couldn't hear her since she doesn't have a microphone on her computer. I have a microphone on my computer, so even though she couldn't see me, she could hear me. It was neat. We had a whole conversation over the Internet! Like THAT would ever happen at home with 56 K dial-up... Ahem, Mother... Hmmmm... maybe the next purchase I make will be a webcam... wait a minute... I wonder if my digital camera can act as a webcam??? It's got a USB port... Damn Japanese instructions! Seriously though, I think the next few purchases I'm going to make will be: a real mouse, some disks, a higher capacity memory card for my camera, and a computer desk. Just a makeshift sort of a thing. I went to this Canadian Tire sort of place the other day... they had some wire computer carts... not overly practical, but fairly cheap. Right now, I just use my computer at my living room coffee table that comes up to the middle of my calf. It's beginning to hurt my back. I've been trying to find some side tables for my bedroom. You have no idea how difficult it is to find a fairly cheap side table that is more than a foot high. They have some nice cedar wood ones at the Canadian Tire place, but they are over 2000\ for the smallest one. We'll see...

When Kasuya-sensei and I were coming back from our little jaunt, I mentioned to her that Dan was planning on coming to visit. I asked her about ryokans -- hotels/bed and breakfasts that allow you to fully experience traditional Japanese living. You sleep on a futon, bathe in an onsen, wear yukata robes (look like kimonos, only they are a hell of a lot more comfortable) and slippers, eat traditional Japanese food... They are fairly pricey, some as much as 100,000\ a weekend (over C$1000), and was wondering if she knew of anywhere that was decent and not over priced. She told me not to worry about it. Turns out on her property, the house she was born in is still standing. Her mother lived there by herself up until she died 3 years ago. They renovated it for her mom when she was still alive and it's a VERY traditional Japanese house -- over 100 years old. And it's HUGE! I saw pictures of it and the main room was probably 16 tatami mats! It's in the "countryside" (it's almost as like Japan has patches of countryside interspersed amongst its cities, similar to all the rice patties everywhere -- maximization of land availability at its finest) and surrounded by bamboo, rice, and tea fields. She said as long as she's not too busy when he comes, we can stay there! Now, I think she's thinking we would expect her to stay with us, cook us traditional Japanese food, and all that other stuff... but I mean, just her letting us stay there is more than enough! She wouldn't need to stay and act as a host. I think that's the Japanese way though. Make sure your guests are well taken care of. She's a really, really sweet lady. Her son is my age. He's trying to become a chemistry teacher. I think she has two sons, actually.

August 26, 2002

It's been a while since I wrote... sorry about that.

On Friday, Ryan and I went out to visit Eric and Debbie. Claire met us there as well. It was pretty expensive to get out there... First, you have to take the JR Train to Hamamatsu (820\ from Shimada station), then you have to take the Shin-Hamamatsu train to the last stop (460\ = 1280\ in total -- about C$17, one way). They live in what would be the ghetto of Japan, I guess. Very seedy. They have a pretty nice place, though. 2 levels, but compact. The upstairs is 2 bedrooms and downstairs is the bathroom, kitchen, and living room. And I am SOOOOOOOO jealous of their fridge! It's much bigger than mine!

Then we went out for dinner to this Korean Barbecue restaurant. Talk about atmosphere! It was definitely Japanese. Not just because we couldn't read the menus (no pictures on them, unfortunately), and not just because we had to take our shoes off at the door – it was just very Japanese. Low tables, everything was made out of wood, each of the tables were really private. We were seated at a table with a recessed ash pit in the middle. The waitress brought over some hot embers and put them in. Then they brought us vegetables (mostly mushrooms, figs, tiny little bell peppers) and we each ordered meat. Debbie had a spare rib, Ryan and Eric both had shrimp, and me and Claire ordered chicken. I don't know how much each individual meat order cost, but it didn't seem to be a fair amount... the guys got ONE shrimp each (mind you, they were HUGE shrimp, but still... they're guys!), Debbie got ONE spare rib, and me and Claire each got THREE skewers of chicken! How screwed up is that? It was pretty fun though! It was difficult ordering what we wanted with everything on the menu in kanji. Debbie and Eric are pretty good with their Japanese (and it was STILL hard to communicate) but if it wasn't for them, I would have HATED to see what we got! We each had a glass of something alcoholic, and we ordered a bottle of wine... and it ended up being about 2300 yen each (about $30 CDN). It was an experience though!

Saturday morning, Ryan and I took the train back to Shimada. Well, I took it to Shimada and Ryan took it to Shizuoka, to meet a friend there. I stopped at the hyaku-yen (100\) store (my bike was parked there, okay! I HAD to go in!) and bought a few things... as I was walking around, a girl, maybe about 10 or 11, started following me around. I smiled at her, she smiled back... and kept following me. Then out of nowhere, she says, "How are you?" I was floored! But you could tell that was all she knew, because she just kept smiling and following me. It was cute. Then on my bike ride home, Yokoyama-sensei was riding her bike, stopped me and asked what I was doing that night. I told her I didn't have any plans (here, it�fs not like there are people scheduling me weekends in advance, so I just kind of go with things) and she asked me if I was interested in helping her with some English conversation classes. So we went to Yaizu (a city on the other side of Fujieda) and I helped her out. We left at 4:30 and arrived just a bit early for the first class at 6:00 pm. It was a private class for an 11-year-old girl named Tomomi. She's brutally shy. Really sweet, doesn't know much English, but she tries. We did a lot of drawing and things of that nature. These Japanese are AMAZING artists! Yokoyama, Tomomi, and me drew pictures of our families (she was learning relatives) and here I was drawing stick people. I was out-drawn by an 11 year old! Almost Japanimation-style! Both Yokoyama and Tomimi had similar styles -- maybe that's how their taught in school. The second class was adults -- 3 guys (in their 20s) and a woman in her 40s. They were a lot of fun: eager to learn (well, most of them) and not afraid to screw up. And I get paid for it! One top of my pay cheque! Yokoyama-sensei said I can go whenever I can, so I don't screw up all of my weekends. I don't know exactly how much I get paid, but every little bit helps!

Then on Sunday, I just hung out at home. Did a few loads of laundry, read quite a bit of my book. At night, I went over to Ryan's and watched a movie. He has, like, a brand new apartment. I'm quite jealous. However, it is smaller than mine. A lot smaller. He's got a 5 tatami mat room, that he has to be all Japanese with... as in, he actually has to fold up his futon and put it away every morning, if he wants to have a living area during the day. His living room turns into his bedroom at night. This is, usually, the norm of the Japanese household. I have a feeling this is changing, though. His kitchen is a little bit smaller than mine also. Off of his kitchen is his bathroom and shower. That's his apartment. I don't know if I could live in an area that small. He has a digital thermostat for hot water. I'm jealous about THAT. What I wouldn't give for a hot water tank right now.

Today, Nishino-sensei took me traipsing all over town. She's really sweet. She knew I wanted to get a computer desk and a chair. So we went to about 5 different stores trying to find one. I bought the chair at Espot (similar to Walmart) and on our way out, there was A CASE OF COKE! I couldn't believe it, I was astounded! A case of 24 was 1880\ ($25 CDN). I know what you're thinking, that's a LOT of money. But wait. 24 cans of 500mLs. That's 12 L of Coke! I thought it was a lot of money myself; Nishino-sensei thought it was a great deal. This was the first case of Coke I've seen since I've been here, so I bought one. There was also a case of 6-2L bottles of water (for about 1/3 the priceof the Coke), so I bought that as well. I like to bring water to school with me, and 2L lasts me about a week.

Then we went to a few second hand stores. One of them had a leather sofa for 16000\ ($213 CDN). It was in pretty good condition, and unlike the sofa I have now, I'm almost 100% positive that leather can't get bugs. We ended up going to Kahma -- the Canadian Tire-like store. And I bought a desk for just over C$100. It's really nice. There's lots of workspace, but no drawers. I'll probably just buy one of those plastic organizer things. They had a small filing cabinet that matched the desk, but it was an additional 7000\!! So now, I�fm all set up.

Nishino-sensei also took me out for a welcome lunch today. She is seriously the cutest thing I've ever met. She's really sincere and genuinely interested in me and Canada and all the differences between Japan and home. She encouraged me to have the steak (1450\ - C$19) so I did. I asked for it medium well. I don't think they know how to cook steak here, because it was awfully pink. But I devoured it anyway! It was so good! So were the one floret of broccoli, one pea pod, and half of a 1 cm cross-section of a corn on the cob. I believe that's what is called "classy". It also came with soup, salad, bread, and drink. We had a great day! She's such a sweetheart. I wasn't planning on getting the coke and the water, but as she said, "When you're with me, buy things in bulk. You can't take stuff like this home on your bike." I think she's going to become a mother figure. Very caring and thoughtful. No one can replace my mommy though. God, I miss her.

I think I've figured out why the Japanese can't drive in North America. First, in Japan, you get your driver's license when you're 18. You get your license, you can drive. That's it. No driving school (but it's available). No road test. I'm not sure exactly what the procedure is to get your license, but it sounds awfully easy. Second, they have mirrors everywhere here. At every intersection and tiny little side street there are concave and convex mirrors to show you if anyone is coming. Hence, there is no need to look left and right before proceeding. So when they come to Canada, they have their old habits of not looking left and right. That's my theory anyway.