Wednesday, May 31, 2000:

Breakfast at Denny’s is sort of reminiscent of one of my anime, Cat Girl Nuku Nuku. The waitresses all yell
“Irrashaimase! (Welcome!) “ As you come in. Luckily this restaurant has a non-smoking section, which is
always very sparsely populated. The waitresses all wear these cute green little dress uniforms, with a white
stripe at the hem of their full shirts, and a little white apron over the skirt. They carry little handheld
computers, with which they take orders and send them to the kitchen. I like the breakfast menu best - tastes
of home in the platter I get, eggs, a slice of bacon and a sausage, pancakes with butter and syrup, orange
juice, and a small salad (?). The salad kinda completes the nutritional requirements of the meal. Mike always
goes for the Japanese breakfast with rice and nori (the flat toasted seaweed you wrap rice in), eggs
scrambled with veggies, and some soup we can’t really identify. Coffee here is excellent in flavour and
strength, but tend to be expensive, ranging from $1.50 to $2 a cup. Denny’s does refills for free. So for
Christmas or something I want a coffee press and a can of Folgers.

Takasaki is indeed in a valley, we are surrounded on three sides by mountains not too far in the distance.
Onsens (hot spring baths) are in the mountains, so I hope to go to those some day.

Cars are hilarious here, at home high school football teams would put them on someone’s barn as a joke,
they are that small. Minivans are mini - short, and very narrow, and absurdly tall for the general size. The one
van I saw that I would consider a North American minivan is probably considered a maxi-van here! You see
every now and then a North American drive vehicle, with the driver’s wheel on the left side. Is that even
legal in North America, to have a right-hand drive vehicle for every day usage? Saw a VW bug- a new one
the other day. Yellow. Not much in the way of colours for cars here - seems that grey is the overwhelming
choice. People also do absurd little motifs on the dashboards of their cars --one I saw had a little beach
scene, with plastic palm trees and beach chairs and stuff. Omigod! Tacky. Hello Kitty is another extremely
popular theme here for car and home décor. I could literally decorate my entire house with Hello Kitty’s
insipidity. Also with Coca Cola or Snoopy. There was a huge store in Harajuku devoted entirely to Snoopy.

We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Takasaki to Harajuku; an area in Tokyo like Missisauga is an
area of Toronto, for Nova’s orientation. It’s an amazingly fast trip - apparently by normal train it’s over two
hours to do what it took us forty-five minutes to travel by Shinkansen. We are getting the hang of train
stations now - aside from totally not comprehending the kanji, it’s a lot like Toronto’s subways - big, clean,
white tiled stations. No panhandlers - Yes! Every now and then you see a homeless guy, but they pretty
much keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone. We had to make one transfer to a regular commuter
train - took bloody 30 minutes to get to the right stop. On the way home it was hugely crowded (to our
eyes). We stood gripping rings brushing against other people tightly packed against us all the way back.

Harajuku was amazing - for the first time I realized that Takasaki is really a smaller city, like Windsor to
Toronto. The street the head office was one was a marvel of traffic jams, amazing shops and neon.
Starbucks, Armani, The Gap - all here! Mike and I are frothing to go to Akihabara, another ‘burb of Tokyo.
Think about four city blocks of electronics stores…this is called Electric Town. The electronics store on
Takasaki took us four days to finally find and even here the range of products makes me want to weep.
They have all the Cowboy Bebop’s on DVD out. Minidisk players for music are very common already. So
we can’t wait to ‘visit’ Peter in Tokyo for a few days to see Akihabara. Tucked away in the very crowded
area was a Shinto Temple we stumbled across in the twilight, lanterns lit and glowing. A nice garden and a
temple by evening - nice. Got some good pics, though the light was fading.

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

Yesterday we went roller bladeing; and I would like to take this opportunity to thank one of my very best
friends Jen (AKA Boo) for teaching me the finer points of “How to skate about and not break your neck”.

Jen: it came in handy!

If we thought that we were getting a lot of strange looks over the last few days from the native Japanese
populace your should have seen ‘em yesterday! You see I’m 6’1” and Kathy is about 5’10” and with the
added height of the blades we are right huge! So the looks we got were a mix of “What the heck is that”
and “those Gaijin are Huge!” For example: we were nearing a underpass with stairs going down and were
trying (somewhat successfully) so slow down and to grab hold of something to keep us from flying head over
heels down the cement stairs arms and legs flailing… in full view of this city worker. The look on his face
was priceless! Smiling with a look of deep concern like he’s thinking “am I gonna have to clean up the
blood after these two fools kill them selves??” You will be glad to know that I didn’t fall down once! Yea
for me! I had practiced an “Anti -injury Move” back home I.e.: Front breakfall… its sorta like a
summersault, very useful to keep you from breaking what ever you bits of your body you have grown
attached to and would have remain UN-broken. The key to this front breakfall is grass, because doing it on
cement can be a tincey bit painful (not as painful as breaking something but…) here comes the problem…
we are in Japan. Do you think that large or even small patches of grass can be found in the county where
every square inch is valued at tens of thousands of yen? Nope. Not a smige. So the only other preventative
measure I can take is “Operation: Slow-mo.” If I don’t take is slow Kathy says I careen rather than blade
so, SLOW is good!

M.

2, 06, 2000

So far Michael and I are really enjoying Japan! We’ve just completed our three days of training, and
tomorrow we get thrown to the wolves, metaphorically speaking. I have to travel forty minutes by train to my
school which is a real downer - it involves my buying a monthly train pass. The form is of course totally
incomprehensible - and then there’s the huge task of trying to figure out the date. They don’t go by
Gregorian dating, but Imperial. Imperial being the Emperor’s birthdate. So when there is a new Emperor,
you start counting years again from zero. We are in the twelfth year apparently - and since Mike and I were
bron in the age of a different emperor, the Meichi (?) period, mike’s birth year is 44, and mine is 48. Uh-
huh! So of course someone else figured it out for me, all I did was fill out my address on the form and pay
for it. Next month, maybe…?

To celebrate our training, and last day working together, we went out for dinner. It is indicative of our
adventures that we two Canadians were sitting in a Turkish restaurant in Japan, drinking American beer that
was served by a Polish waitress! Yes, Polish, and more fluent in Japanese than English. Vive la difference!

Kathy

Well, one thing seems sure - that nothing is! I mean, really, what comparisons are there to make sometimes?
Japan sure is strange sometimes.

To begin with: make sure when visiting Japan to have your BEST walking shoes. People are big time into
walking - and after that biking. Popular right now is a small folding scooter, one of those things that were
popular in the fifties in America? It’s like a skateboard with a long handle… Stairs are huge here! Even in the
rail-stations, there are few escalators, and usually only going up. So you find yourself trudging, as I do, up
three long flights to get into the station, and then two flight6s down. But this is because the station’s are
usually built over the tracks. Quite the buildings. Mike’s Nova school is on the second, third and fourth
floors, and between classes he has to dash up and down. Did I mention the stairs are on the outside of the
building? MY Nova school has an elevator! Yeah! And it’s all on the same floor.

I have two other Canadians at my school, a Welsh person, some Ozzies, and some brits.

Best of all, I’ve finally got a handle on a martial arts school that does kung fu! Mantis style, no less. John of
my school knows a place in a town between Takasaki and Kumagaya with an instructor that speaks
Japanese, English, and Chinese. John doesn’t go there himself, as the instructor prefers to do forms and Tai
Chi more than sparring. Fine by me!

Teaching is okay! I was horribly nervous and hated my first lesson very much, but I’m a lot more secure
about it now. The lessons are pretty structured, so it’s true that even a non-teacher type like myself can do
them! I get all types - a lot of engineering or unemployed people actually, and a fair amount of high school
girls. Some of the girls are so quiet and self-effacing, I just want to shake them. Other than that, it’s a job. I
like it so far.

We went into a book shop the other day that specialized in manga novels! Found my Blade of the Immortal,
Hana Yori Dango and Inu Yasha, among others. There’s so many I’d like to get…but of course they are in
Japanese. The books stores here are odd in that they don’t display hardly any books cover forward. It’s like
a library, where you find things alphabetically. How do you alphabetize kanji anyway? I still haven’t found
any Ranma ½. Nor have I found any posters of anime dammit! Lotta North American celebrity posters
(Brad Pitt is huge) and Japan-Pop faces. Although I did find some Evangelion models.

Chocolate is pretty good in Japan! Coke is pretty much the same. The odd drinks I try occasionally form
vending machines are usually disappointing! Fruit drinks are not actually much for juice, more like a weak
fruit syrup. Mike is fond of this stuff called Ice Cider, which actually has no relation what so ever to cider -
it’s some odd sweet flavored carbonated thing. My favorite brand name scheme are these silly things that
come on Pepsi bottles called Pepsi Guy! It's like a little plastic statue of this hero-type in blue and silver
doing funny things, like stepping on gum or being slapped by a woman or clutching his head next to a
shattered window (like a bird!). I’m trying to collect them. Odd - knowing that if your really need it, you can
pop down to the corner store and Buy some Jim Beam, or if it’s not 24 hours, a vending machine. I haven’t
seen any of the noodle venders yet though.

My train ride out to Kumagaya is about 45 minutes long. It’s hellish finding the right track. But I get a nice
view of the Kannon on the way out. The area we live on, though surrounded by mountains, is flat as Essay
County. Trains on parallel tracks going the other way pass so fast and suddenly, it’s like a gun shot as the
windows and doors suddenly rattle from the vacuum of the passage! The train is very quick, though not as
fast as the bullet Shinkansen. The Shink is faster travelling because it has less stops though. Train stations are
a marvel because they are like little shopping malls! You can buy huge amounts of reasonable packaged
fresh foods for your business lunch or for travel, buy a dress, or some souvenir cakes and tacky things. Like
our city’s auspicious Daruma doll! Lots of restaurants too. But the coffee is so bloody expensive! Even
freeze dried coffee would be great to have shipped.

Personal Bitch - I hate that the stores here have such unreasonable hours! A lot shut up at 5 or 6,
supermarkets at around 8, restaurants at 10. I mean dammit! No wonder so many Japanese women aspire
to be housewives, because if someone didn’t shoulder it, no one would be able to go shopping at the right
times when every sane person works, and the whole damn nation would starve and freeze. Serve ‘em right
too if they did. Bloody bloody hours…

Every night Mike go for a stroll around the neighbor hood. Takasaki was formerly a castle city, which may
perhaps explain the torturous streets. We ourselves live on something Americans would be ashamed to call
an alley - our old car would never have fit down it without losing paint and even fenders. The streets twist
and wend all over. According top our landlord, it’s because they originally aligned to castles moats and
defenses. Or something. Personally I think they did it to thwart attackers, because in trying to navigate their
way to the castle, they would became lost, stagger into the local yakitori joint for beer and chicken, become
drunk and wake up with no money, meaning they would have to setttle down and build a joint of their own.
All that aside, the walks we have are always varied and we are much more active than we were in Canada.

New things learned - Duraemon is THE most popular character in Japan - he’s what Bugs Bunny is to us, a
very visible and ubiquitous character. He’s this cute little blue robot cat from the future with a pocket. He has
no ears, because some mice nibbled them off when he was turned off and he turned blue from fear. He’s
come to the past and is a the companion of a little boy, and whenever there’s trouble he pulls something from
his magic pocket. Simple, huh?

Number four is bad luck because it is associated with death.

A Student told me not to visit the Kannon with my husband, because she would get jealous of me. She
creates trouble between couples, so I should visit it with another girl, I guess. Some boddhistatva of mercy!

Kathy

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

Well, today’s weather calls for rain. So does tomorrow, and the day after than and so on. It’s the rainy
season. Six weeks of rain… then after that 2 months of blistering heat, then Winter! Yea! Winter
culminates in one very nasty month of temps close to zero degrees Celsius! Oh Joy! Stuff to look forwards
to.

Did I mention that I felt my first earth quake about a week ago? No? Ok. It wasn’t very strong it just felt
like someone was kicking my chair, I was teaching a large group lesson called “Voice”. And I looked
around to see who. Everyone in the class was taking in Japanese looking somewhat agitated, I looked at
them and said “Earthquake?” On of the students looked at me and with a grin on his face he said “Yes, and
the whole building is shaking.” I think he was trying to elicit some kind of response from me. Fear? Not me
I said “Yea. Cool!!” he looked a little disappointed.

Teaching isn’t all that bad, sometimes is really fun, and other time its a lot like pulling teeth… with
your fingers.

Time to try to find the internet place again. See ya soon.

Mike