Trip to Greece - part 1

So basically, tickets back to the States cost about as much as a trip to Greece plus due to some time-share magic on the part of Anne's parents the hotel for the first week would essentially be free... so.... we're going to Greece!  Later today we're driving to the shinkansen station about an hour and a half away.  The bullet train to Tokyo takes about two hours.  The express train from Tokyo station to Narita airport takes about an hour and a half.  We take our first flight later tonight to Beijing (4 hours).  Next from Beijing to Munich (10 hours).  Then Munich to Athens (2.5 hours).  Finally Athens to the small Greek island where we'll be staying for the first week (about 1 hour).  So... it's going to be a long day.

Luckily I have my Nintendo 3DS, iPhone with Kindle App, and my laptop so between dozing off and playing with those I think I'll be OK.

Anyway... here are some amusing pictures for your enjoyment:

 The name of the baseball stadium in Sendai... and I thought the ones in the US were bad...

 

The sign to the left is explaining how to make "American style" s'mores (sumoa in Japanese).

 The name of a popular brand of sports drink given to Anne.  Try saying, 

"I love drinking Pocari Sweat!"

For some reason spam is a really popular imported item... I never realized it came in these flavors.

It had been quite a while since I saw such a long rainbow, so I took this while in Ishinomaki.

Let me give you a tour

The busy week is finally over but next week will be busy too...  For winter vacation I'll be going on a trip to Greece with Anne and another JET (I'll tell you more about that later) so I've got to pack my suitcase.  I did a Christmas presentation for the third-year students at Hashi on Friday and I have to modify it this weekend for the first and second-years.

But anyway, I was thinking I should probably tell you more about the apartment where I live.  Before I came to Japan I had no idea what to expect except that it would probably be a lot smaller than any place I had stayed in before in the US.  Thus I was pleasantly surprised that my room (B.R. 2 below) was larger than my college dorm room and there really isn't a feeling of having too little space (most of the time). 

The layout of my apartment.

As can be seen there is a separate shower room (S.R.) and toilet room (W.C., also known as a water closet), there is no clothes dryer, and there is no oven.  The patio has built-in bars so that clothes can be hung during the warmer/sunnier months but now that it's cold we have to dry our clothes inside on portable clothes hangers.  When the clothes hangers are up, the kitchen/living room can feel very cramped.  Another thing to note is that the bathroom-area sink does not have hot water so one must go to the kitchen and turn on the water heater wall unit for the kitchen sink.  The water heater, shower room water heater, and stove top burner (only one) are all gas powered.  The microwave unit in the kitchen has a toaster and oven setting but it is too small for most baking pans.  The shower room contains the deep bathtub a moveable shower head (like my grandmother has).  Unfortunately the shower head is way down near the floor so instead of just leaving it up on the wall to have a real shower I have to either crouch down really low to wash my hair or pick up the shower head and wash using that.  I get water in my ears pretty often but not as often as when I was first starting out.  Turning the shower on is another obstacle.

The shower controls.

I have to turn on the gas so that the heater can heat the water while I shower (luckily it heats the water very well).  Next I turn the water on.  During the winter months if it's below -2 Celsius (~28 degrees Fahrenheit) we have to drain the water in the pipes of the shower room so that the water won't freeze there during the night.

The toilet is not like any other I've ever encountered.  I was expecting to have a high-tech toilet like the ones I saw when I first came to Japan (even the toilets at the movie theater have heated seats) but the toilet in the apartment is… a glorified trap-door.  The toilet bowl has little to no water inside of it and as I said, the bottom of the bowl is like a trap door which is released when you hit the flusher and more water enters the bowl, or when the weight inside is heavy enough so that the trap door opens on its own.  It's certainly… different and is apparently a fairly old-fashioned toilet.

Well, some of the previously mentioned things can get annoying but most of the time I'm so used to them now that I don't even notice.  I do like several aspects of the apartment including its spacious closets, its open kitchen/living room, and the lovely tatami mats in the bedrooms and living room.  Tatami mats are delicate so you can't wear shoes while you walk on them (this is one of the reasons that outdoor shoes are not worn inside of Japanese houses).  I imagine another reason is that it is much easier cleaning-wise to separate outdoor shoes from the indoors (in school this is especially effective).  Remember all those rainy days when hundreds of kids would track mud into the school building leaving slippery messes all over the place?  That doesn't happen in Japanese schools where the kids put on their indoor shoes once they enter the building. 

Many aspects of the apartment (the good and the bad) are there to either save space or are designed to prevent earthquake damage.  For example, in a traditional Japanese home there will not be any tall furniture or standing lamps.  In the event of an earthquake you don't want to have heavy things up high where they might potentially fall on you (like a tall bookshelf).  Most rooms have dangling ceiling lights that will get shaken up but won't fall.

My ceiling light.

The closets are large because people want the option of using bedrooms as other kinds of rooms during the day.  For example, the living room could potentially be used as a third bedroom if we put up the sliding doors between that room and the kitchen and put the kotatsu into the large closet at night.  During the day the futon could be folded and put into the same closet.

 Anyway, that's the tour for now!

A walk through town - photos

So, things have been very busy and I haven't had time to post.  I probably won't have time to write a lot until the end of the week so until then here are photos from Minamisanriku:

 A pile of tires on my way to work.

 A car on top of what used to be an apartment building.

 Some statues left to bring peace to the deceased.

 An autumn tree in the sunlight.

 Part of the layer of dead trees.

 The forest near my apartment.

 A section of town which has been cleared.

 The tide coming in through what was the center of town.

This used to be a pillar inside someone's house.

A boat on dry land.

The Legend of the Turtle Bug

OK, so most people will probably think that this post is just really random but I thought this situation was ironic and kind of funny so I'll tell you what happened. 

Back in the day when I was still living in Massachusetts (and still in elementary school or so) I noticed that as the temperature got colder outside during the fall some strange bugs would start appearing inside the house.  The bugs were brown and speckled, had hard shells, and moved very slowly (so slowly that even the cats weren't interested in them).  Due to their shells and slow-moving nature my siblings and I called them turtle bugs and they never caused us any trouble.  It wasn't until some time later that I found out the bugs in question were stink bugs.  Anyway, after spending a few weeks in Japan I noticed some large bugs kept appearing in the apartment.  Anne told me that she didn't know what they were called but that she had been told they were dangerous so we threw them out of the house when we saw them.  I was a bit worried that the bugs might be poisonous, or be able to sting but at least the bugs moved at a leisurely pace (instead if swarming like ants) and they made me smile because they reminded me of the turtle bugs back home.

One day during English class I noticed a couple of the boys looking out the window so I asked them what they saw.  It turns out they were looking at something inside the classroom, one of the large bugs.  The English teacher stopped class so that he could grab the bug very carefully and take it outside (teachers are very nice about that kind of thing in Japan, I remember when I was a kid the teacher wouldn't even stop class if there was a bee flying around, she would just tell us to ignore it!).  When I asked the English teacher what kind of bug it was he said it was a stink bug, kamemushi.  I got a bit excited because I knew that mushi meant "bug" and I knew that "turtle" was kame (and I was hoping that these particular bugs would be called turtle bugs).  I wasn't sure though if the kame in question was the same kame in kamemushi since in Japanese (as in English) words with different meanings can sound the same (like "I" and "eye").  When I asked the teacher if the kame in kamemushi meant "turtle" he said that it was probably one of the meanings.  Later that day I looked it up in the dictionary and found three different ways to write kamemushi, in two of the cases the kame meant "turtle" and in the third more rare form the characters translate to camellia (the flower) and elephant, which I thought was also very amusing.

So in Japan stink bugs are literally "turtle bugs" and even though Anne and I have had trouble with them building a nest outside our bathroom window since then and there's always the chance they'll feel threatened and stink up the apartment I still can't help but like them since they are a bit ridiculous and they remind me of home.

 

A kamemushi on my floor.

Staying warm

One thing about Japanese houses, most do not have central heating (nor much wall insulation) so people rely heavily on space heaters instead. Basically not only does it save money to heat just the rooms a person is using but also in the event of a large earthquake it is better to have smaller heat sources in buildings so there is less chance of a fire afterward (and less insulation means less fuel for potential fires as well). Back in Massachusetts I had been living with relatives who kept the thermostat way down in the winter because the main source of heat was a wood-stove in the living room (and the heat never seemed to make its way up to my room somehow, even though I thought heat was supposed to rise...). Essentially I'm used to sleeping in the cold but not to doing daily activities (like eating) in the cold and I was getting a bit discouraged each time I entered my freezing cold apartment in the evening. We had the kotatsu (the heated table I mentioned in an earlier post) and the small A/C unit in the living room which can also give a little heat but with temperatures getting below 7 degrees Celsius (45 degrees F) at night Anne and I wanted something more.

So, a couple of Fridays ago we went out with a lady from the Board of Education (also named Suzuki-san if you can believe it) and we drove to the next town to get two kerosene heaters (one for the living room, one for Anne's room), a small electric heater for the bathroom area, and an electric blanket for my room. I could have chosen to get a kerosene heater as well but as I mentioned I'm used to sleeping in cold rooms and I haven't even opened the blanket yet even though it's dipped to 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees F) at night since then.

The two kerosene heaters are pretty high-tech, they have a built-in clock so we can set them to come on or turn off at a certain time. They're set to run for three hours but if they sense that there's too much CO2 or CO in the air they turn off automatically. If we want them to run for more than three hours we have to push a button (I guess this is a safety measure in case a person forgets about having the heaters on and leaves the house or goes to sleep). We bought some kerosene while we were in town (at about 70 yen/L) the kerosene heaters themselves hold about 5 Liters but we've been burning through around a Liter a day... It's a bit annoying to keep refilling the tanks but so far it hasn't been as annoying as stacking wood for the wood-stove back home.

Here's one of the smart kerosene heaters.

To diminish the heating bill further we got some plastic "ribbed film" to stick to the windows that's supposed to help keep the heat in and also absorb the ridiculous amount of condensation that accumulates.  We also stopped by the clothing store UNIQLO (which I liked a lot) and purchased some "Heat Tech" clothing which is popular in Japan because it apparently helps the wearer stay insulated even though the material is quite thin.  The clothing store was having a sale so I got several articles of clothing for 999 yen (about $13) apiece; I wore one of the shirts today and I think it really did help (I only had to wear two layers!).  If we have a chance I'd like to go back and get some leggings and socks too.  In other news we got snow tires for our car yesterday so hopefully we'll be alright when the fabled ice comes along... haha.

 And finally for your enjoyment (and to celebrate the 1000th blog view even though most of those are probably from my sister obsessively refreshing the page) here is an ebi (shrimp), tamago (egg), and bacon pizza on sale at an "Italian" restaurant in the next town.

Elementary schools rule

I finally got to go to Shiroharu Elementary, and it was tons of fun!  I took the school bus with the kids from my neighborhood (Shiroharu isn't too far away from my apartment, just a 2-3 minute drive).  When I first took the bus the students gave me weird looks but now they expect me to be there once a week and ask me random questions in very fast Japanese which I usually can't understand without my dictionary.  Teaching at an elementary school is usually awesome since the kids are so genki (energetic/full of life)... most of the time.  A few sixth grade classes haven't gone as smoothly because the sixth graders are feeling a bit too cool for games in English class and elementary school in general (sixth graders are still in the elementary school system, unlike the US).  Just this week when I was trying to invigorate a sleepy-looking sixth grade class, their homeroom teacher (who is always there to help or plan out the English lessons) told them to wake up and asked some random students what they had for breakfast in order to keep them on their toes.  The teacher claimed to have had steak and non-alcoholic beer for breakfast which made the kids laugh and wake up a bit.  I mostly have classes with fifth and sixth graders.  Due to some recent changes to the Japanese elementary curriculum dictating that the 5th and 6th grade students must have one hour of English class per week (I believe), more and more JETs are being assigned to elementary schools.  Personally, I think it's great for the students to start language learning early because then there's a better chance for the students to learn correct pronunciation.  If only the requirement were for 5 hours per week... but then some other subjects would be minimized so that's not good either... it's definitely tricky to balance.

Usually at the elementary schools I get assigned to eat lunch with some of the younger students (for example last Tuesday I ate with the 4th graders at Hayai Elementary).  Eating lunch with the kids is fun especially if the homeroom teacher knows a little English to translate the kids' questions and comments.  I've been asked some pretty funny questions recently including:

Q: Why can you use chop sticks?
A: Because I ate at Chinese restaurants in the US.
I get this question a lot, even adults seem very surprised that I can use chop sticks.  I think that this is because most Japanese in the countryside only see foreigners on TV eating with forks and knives.  There is also the idea that eating with chop sticks is difficult and that only people in Japan can do it since they were brought up doing it and it's part of their culture.

Q: Are you wearing colored contacts?
A: No, my eyes really are blue.  My brother's eyes are green.
The sixth grade girls asking got SUPER excited when they heard about my brother.  I think that for many of the students I'm the first person they're ever seen (outside of TV) who has blue eyes so they tend to think it's cool.

Q: Why are your eyes blue?
A: Because... my family comes from Northern Europe... (?)
I didn't want to confuse them with talk about genetics...

Q: Why are foreigners so tall?
A: Because... they drink a lot of milk.
Again genetics, and nutrition...

Q: Do you know what kuro kuro PA is?
When saying "kuro kuro" the boy made a circular motion with each hand and when he said "PA!" he made an explosion-type gesture.
A: I'm sorry, I don't understand the question...
When I asked Miyu-sensei later she said it is a way to say that someone has nothing in their brain (aka stupid).

Anyway, I also wanted to mention that I added a few pictures to the following previous posts:
From October:
Entering Minamisanriku... 
From November:
Lost Conversations
Alice was a boy!

Driving: Left turns are now easy

We got a car (I told you), we got car insurance, and we even got optional car insurance (which wasn't so optional since everyone was insisting that we get it).  After all that we still weren't allowed to drive to school yet (Suzuki-san said something about how we wouldn't know how to drive on icy/hilly roads).  Well, I know the roads in Japan aren't salted in the wintertime (since it would ruin the surrounding rice fields) but the roads are often more textured than in the US (especially for sharp curves) and I figure that as long as you go slow you'll get used to it (right?).  The roads haven't been icy yet, meanwhile in Massachusetts there was a freak October snowstorm and Halloween trick-or-treating was postponed in some towns due to power outages.  I hope that I can drive to school soon since I really feel bad about the other teachers driving me (and poor Katou-san doesn't even live in my neighborhood)!

Here's our car, it's about five feet tall.

  Anyway, what you're probably really wondering is how difficult/different it is to drive on the left side for someone who's driven on the right.  The answer is... it's really not that bad at all.  It helps that the steering wheel is on the right side (thus reminding me to be vigilant).  I was probably driving a bit too far to the left side during my first trip but I've improved since then.  It's only confusing when I pull onto an empty road (since I automatically try to stay on the right if I'm not simply following the car in front of me).  In the US I drove a standard transmission (manual) car but our k-car is an automatic and as I predicted I did attempt to shift the car into neutral a few times when going down a hill.  My right hand automatically went out to my right side (where the shifter would be in my US car) and I hit my hand against the driver's side door... haha.  So I learned pretty quickly that there was no need to shift.

Using kilometers per hour (km/hr) instead of miles per hour (mph) also isn't hard since all the speed limit signs (which are circular with a red border) are in km/hr and the k-car's speedometer only measures in km/hr.  As a side note, going 70 km/hr (on the highway) may sound fast, but it's only about 45 mph.  Most speed limits in my area are 30 to 50 km/hr (20 - 35 mph), which is a good thing since most of the roads are much narrower than in my hometown.  Luckily in my neighborhood there are plenty of strategically placed mirrors at the intersections so that I can see if there's a car coming around a corner.

As a final note about driving in Japan I must warn you that stop signs are NOT octagons, they are triangles with the word tomare (stop) on them, so please be careful if you ever go to Japan!

Alice was a boy!

How is it already halfway through November?   And why haven't I posted in so long?  Well, basically I've been busy (and lazy) over the past couple weeks and for that I am sorry!  So, first I'll explain about the Hashi Junior High School Bunkasai (culture festival) which occurred on October 30th (gah! So far behind!).   It was fun but a bit exhausting (even though I was just watching) since it was an all day event.  I got to school as if it were a regular school day (even though it was a Sunday) around 8 AM (but I got to drive myself which was nice).  The cultural events started around 8:30 and continued until 5:30 with just an hour lunch break around noon. All the different classes sang a song and performed a play together.  Each of the three grades also sang a song as a whole and there were many small-group and individual performances as well.  For example, the brass band played a few numbers and some individual students did English speeches in front of the school.  Students had previously hung various art projects on the walls too (all the students came to school on Saturday to prepare).

 Some of the art projects involved colorful paper cranes.

The whole event took place in the gymnasium (which doubles as the auditorium since there is a stage).  There isn't any heating in the gym though (or maybe it just hasn't been turned on yet for the season) so I used a small blanket that I keep in my desk (a gift from Miyu-sensei) to keep warm.
During the lunch break everyone had a delicious meat and veggie stew over rice which had been hand made by some volunteers at the school.  Meanwhile in the gym a silent movie was playing (with an instrumental sound track) which seemed to have been recorded from a car's dashboard.   It showed the car's viewpoint as it went through some narrow streets of a seaside town on a drizzly day.  I thought it was pretty cool and so I watched it for a while.  Some of the landscape looked vaguely familiar to me and I heard some of the students saying "Natsukashii ne" which means 'I miss that!'.   I realized that I was probably looking at the area around the school before the tsunami. When I asked a teacher when the footage was taken she said early spring of 2010, just a year before the tsunami.  I think it had been recorded as part of a film project by someone in Sendai and had been recently sent to the school after the principal requested a copy.

After the lunch break there were many student-run performances like a talent show and a cross-dressing competition (yes, you read right)!   The mister-misses competition was extremely popular and had many competitors (mostly guys actually).  It was pretty hilarious, especially since some of the young male teachers participated as well.  I can't imagine that the mister-misses competition would have been popular in my junior high school... I wonder what makes Japan different?  Maybe the focus on cuteness?

Anyway,  I think I mentioned that some of the first years at Hashi wanted me to be in their class play during the culture festival.  Luckily that fell through but they still decided to do 'Alice in Wonderland'.  At the beginning of the play one of the female students was playing Alice but as soon as she went through the rabbit hole a male student (in a dress) replaced her, it was pretty clever.  The other first year class did Cinderella (also played by a male student) and a second year class did Snow White (again a boy).  The other classes created original plays that had to do with school life and (from what I could tell with my limited Japanese) all the students were playing their own genders.  So... it was an interesting day.

Lost Conversations

So I mentioned that I was getting driven to school by Miya-sensei, but I didn’t mention that I’ve been getting a ride back with Katou-san, an employee at Hayai Elementary.  Katou-san is very kind to drive me back, but he speaks almost no English and when he speaks Japanese he goes very fast and tends to mutter (a deadly combination).  Oftentimes when I say, ‘I’m sorry, could you say that again?’ he apologizes and then says something else very quietly (maybe an explanation of what he just said...?) but I usually can’t hear/understand that either so the conversation ends before it begins.  Katou-san has me ride in the back seat (which is a compliment since the seats furthest from the driver are for "honored guests" in Japan) though it makes me feel like I’m being chauffeured around and the distance between us doesn’t exactly help with communication (especially if the radio happens to be on).  At the same time it’s a little less awkward to be in the back seat when our short conversations end due to language issues.

The few things I understood in the past had to do with the tsunami.  It seems like the first time I’ve driven with anyone new that person has felt compelled to point out the damage.  Some ask if I heard about the tsunami before coming to Japan and when I tell them it was big news they seem surprised.  Some point out the dead trees and say, ‘The water went up to there,’ (which I can see) and I don’t know what else to say except, ‘Yeah.’  Some point out where things used to be, ‘There used to be an grocery store here,’ or, ‘There used to be a bridge there.’  Katou-san pointed out the foundation that used to support his house (thankfully his wife was able to get to high ground before the tsunami hit and now they’re living with relatives).  We were also able to talk about an English song that was playing once, Katou-san asked me what ‘green fields’ (from the lyrics) meant and I could remember the word for ‘green’ but not for ‘fields’!  Luckily I had my old iPhone with me (aka my Japanese dictionary) so I was able to translate it eventually.  Other than that we only would say a few words about the weather and the rest of the 15 minute ride would be silent.  Usually I'd end up looking out the window which is kind of like being slapped in the face several times.  The road to school is windy and as it goes around hills and over rivers it also approaches the ocean several times during the trip.  Of course every time we approach the ocean we see the tsunami damage... which is like a slap in the face compared to the scenic countryside only a little farther from the water.

The current state of Minamisanriku near the coast.

But back to Katou-san... somehow we had an actual conversation!  He asked me whether I was religious (I figured out with the help of my dictionary and by asking him if he was talking about God) I told him that I wasn’t but that my grandmother was.  Next he asked what being non-religious was called and I said, “Atheist.”  I told him that my step-mom is Jewish... which took some work since I didn’t know the word for ‘step-mom’ or ‘divorce’... and had forgotten the word for ‘wife’.  But I finally got the information across and I said that my step-mom didn’t do Christmas, she did Hanukkah instead.  Katou-san asked me how to say ‘wedding’ in English and asked me if I knew what a kimono or yukata were.  I said that I knew of them but I’ve never... (I couldn’t think of the word ‘worn’) so I pointed to my jacket and I think he understood.  He tried to ask me something else, ‘It’s not Christmas and you have a kabocha.’  It basically sounded like a riddle...  When I looked up kabocha it meant squash/pumpkin so I realized he was asking about Halloween.  Katou-san said that it wasn’t celebrated in Japan and I told him that my students and I had been doing Halloween activities in class just as we were pulling up to my apartment building.  So, yeah, it wasn’t a very long conversation but I was proud of it.  When I was getting out of the car I thanked him as usual and apologized for my poor Japanese skills.  He chuckled and said that his English was terrible and so we’d both have to study.

Conveyor-belt sushi and Karaoke!

So the Godfather (aka Chibara-kuchou) invited Anne and me to have “real” Japanese sushi after Anne said she didn’t mind a chain-restaurant known as 'Kappazushi' (which sells low-priced sushi apparently).  He said that while we were at it we should do karaoke too.  So one Friday night after work we met at the community center to go out.  At first Chibara-kuchou said that he and four of his buddies would be going but in the end only one crony could make it.  As we were about to leave, Chibara-kuchou’s grandson started making a fuss since he wanted to go too!  Eventually we decided to take two cars so that Chibara-kuchou’s family could come to dinner as well.  It turns out that it wasn’t just a sushi restaurant, it was kaitenzushi, conveyor-belt sushi!  The conveyor belt was to the left of our table and anytime we saw something that we wanted to try we would take the plate.

The kaitenzushi restaurant

Each sushi type had a different colored plate so that once a person has finished eating the waiter can know the value of the sushi.  This sushi also wasn’t maki-sushi (the kind where the fish and vegetables are rolled in rice and seaweed) this was real sushi where the slice of meat sits on top of a small ball of rice.  It was reallllllly good.  I had tuna, salmon, crab and mayonnaise, tuna and mayonnaise, salmon eggs, and sea urchin (I think I’ll add the last two to my list of “crazy things that I’ve eaten”).  One of the sushi chefs was working right near our table and he was amazed that some foreigners were eating raw fish.  He was even more amazed when Anne said that she loved salmon eggs (which some Japanese people don’t even like) and so he gave us free samples.  I was sure to eat slowly because I wasn't sure how all the raw fish would affect my stomach but I actually felt completely fine afterwards.

Next Chibara-kuchou, one of his cronies (the designated driver), Anne, and I went to a karaoke place.  Karaoke is extremely popular in Japan, when you go you get a whole room to yourself with a flatscreen TV, a sweet stereo system, a couch, and thousands of songs to choose from (including English ones luckily).  Chibara-kuchou and his friend said they weren’t into singing and wanted to just eat snacks and listen to us instead.  Anne is good at singing and knew how to work the karaoke controls so she went first.  I couldn’t for the life of me think of a song that I wanted to sing since a) I’m horrible at remembering song and artists' names b) I’m not very good at singing c) I was put on the spot and had kind of a brain-freeze... so I asked Anne to pick a few songs which we sang together.  I sang one song by myself when Anne went to the bathroom though, 'Sekai no Yakusoku' (World's Promise), the slow Japanese one which plays at the end of the animated movie 'Howl’s Moving Castle'.  Chibara-kuchou took a few pictures of us with his cell phone while we were singing (probably so he could brag to his cronies about going to karaoke with us later on). 

After our hour of singing was up we headed back toward home.  We stopped briefly twice; once when Chibara-kuchou showed us a pachinko parlor (Japanese style gambling), and once when there was a mandatory breathalyzer test being performed by police on every car going on our road (drinking and driving laws are very strict in Japan).  But anyway, I can’t wait to try karaoke again!  The karaoke machines in Japan are so high-tech they can make anyone sound good!

A k-car and Bunkasai Preparations

The weekend of October 15th, Anne and I rather unexpectedly got a car!  Apparently Suzuki-san was getting sick of driving us around because he got in contact with an agency which was set up to make donating specific things to the tsunami-affected area easier.  Through this agency he asked if there were any cheap cars available and was put in contact with a couple from the city of Nagoya.  This particular couple had a spare car which had belonged to the husband’s father until he passed away last year.  Suzuki-san told the couple about Anne and me and they decided to give us the car for free!  So that Saturday the couple arrived in Minamisanriku after driving the car a good 850 km (about 525 miles) with the intention of taking the shinkansen (bullet train) back on Sunday.  We met the couple briefly on Saturday afternoon to thank them for the car.  Both the husband and wife spoke good English and so they were able to explain all the features of the car to us.  The car is... kind of old (old enough to have a cassette player but not old enough to have roll-down windows).  The car was well-cared for and was apparently kept in a garage most of the time (a rare occurrence in Japan where there are few garages).  Having an older car in Japan can be a hassle though.  Every two years we must have an official inspection which costs around $2000 just because the car is over four years old.  If the car fails the inspection then we will have to pay for repairs too.  Luckily the official inspection isn’t due until the end of August.  Our car is also... not really a car.  It is too small and doesn’t have enough horsepower or weight for international standards so it's in a different class of vehicle known as a k-car.  In Japan k-cars are required to have yellow license plates to differentiate them from regular cars which have white license plates.  My mom asked me if the car was just a "glorified golf-cart" but I can assure you that it’s more comfortable and powerful than that (getting up hills may take a while though).

So, Anne and I drove the k-car back to the apartment but then we weren’t allowed to use it after that since we didn’t have car insurance yet.  The license plates were also removed so that they could be returned to the dealership and exchanged for Miyagi prefecture ones.  After that we’ll be able to use it on weekends but we don’t have permission to use it to drive to school since we’re foreigners and we might get in a car crash... I mean... we need to check to make sure there are parking spots available at the schools (basically Suzuki-san said something like that).  Other JETs use cars to drive to school though so I think that if we don’t crash the car over the weekends for a few weeks in a row then we’ll be able to get permission to use it after that.  I'll post a picture of the car soon but it seems like every time I think of it the sun has already gone down (I think it seriously went down at 5 PM today, actually I just looked it up and it set at 4:52... <O_O>).

Anyway, this past week at school I had another small speech in front of Hayai Elementary.  Luckily there aren’t very many students so it wasn’t as intimidating as it had been at Hashi JHS.  Other random events have been going on at my schools as well.  Hashi is preparing for its yearly bunkasai (Cultural Festival) which will take place on Sunday, and Michiue and Hayai both had some kind of performance festivals as well.  At Hayai I watched some fourth graders practicing for a yosakoi performance and some third graders preparing for a play (they were so cute!).  At Hashi a class of 7th graders asked me if I would be Alice from “Alice in Wonderland” for their performance.  Hopefully they were kidding since I haven’t heard anything about it since then and I’m not even sure if it’s a skit or what.  While preparing for the bunkasai, the middle school students have been having fewer classes during the day and using the rest of the time to prepare their various skits, presentations and performances.  Meanwhile I’ve been trying to learn all the students’ names which is no small task since there are quite a few of them and I don’t see them all consistently.  I’ll keep working on it though!

The Godfather of Minamisanriku

So the good news is that Anne’s alien registration card finally came!  But when we tried to go to the cell phone store to get her cell put in her name (it’s currently under our supervisor’s name) the cell company said that it would be impossible to change... kind of weird if you ask me since she pays the bill.  But she was able to change her internet router info so that she can pay for it automatically via her bank account.  I’m kind of happy now that I’m waiting to get a cell until after I get my alien registration card so it can all be in my name from the start.

Anyway, after I’d been in the neighborhood for a few weeks Anne came back one night to tell me that she’d been talking with Chibara-kuchou, the neighborhood chief.  Basically he’s a retired, older guy in charge of the community center building and who has a lot of connections.  The way Anne described him almost reminded me of a very tame mafia or something since Chibara-kuchou has a bunch of cronies and some of them call themselves brothers even though I'm pretty sure they’re not related.  When outside aid comes in to help the victims of the tsunami oftentimes the items will end up being distributed by Chibara-kuchou.  Anne told me that when she first arrived and was trying to figure out which days to put out the trash she ended up in front of the community center where Chibara-kuchou and his gang were grilling up some fish underneath a temporary pavilion.  They told Anne what she needed to know and gave her some milk and rice that had been donated to the area.  Anyway, apparently Chibara-kuchou was annoyed that Anne hadn’t been by the grilling-tent recently and that she hadn’t introduced me to the gang.

So... one Thursday after work Anne and I walked down to the community center and ate some barbecue.  Upon meeting Chibara-kuchou I decided that he kind of reminded me of the Godfather (hopefully without the shooting and horse heads...).  Basically it’s in your best interest to stay on his good side and then you’ll get things in return.  After eating some grilled fish(?) with Chibara-kuchou and a few of his buddies we decided to call it an evening (though it was only about 7).  On our way back to our apartment we were walking in the same direction as Chibara-kuchou when he asked us what we were eating for dinner.  Anne and I told him we weren’t really sure (we were planning to heat up some leftovers) and he told us to come to his place to see if his wife (whom he affectionately called “the old woman”) had made anything.  Chibara-kuchou’s wife is a full-time housewife (the “ideal” woman by Japanese standards) and has been for going on 40 years now so of course dinner was ready when we arrived.  So, though I felt a bit embarrassed about intruding upon the wife, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, we were invited for some homemade dinner!  Chibara-kuchou’s wife taught us about some Japanese table manners while the daughter-in-law tried to encourage her five year-old son to sing us the ABCs (unsuccessfully).  It was a fun evening.

On October 9th Anne and I took the bus into Sendai to see Erin again (this time as part of a yosakoi festival).  Yosakoi is energetic dancing with colorful costumes and props that is really fun to watch.  Erin and a few other JETs from the Kami area of Iwate joined a local women’s yosakoi team last year and apparently have a good time with it (plus it’s good exercise).

Here’s a different yosakoi team during their performance.

While in Sendai Anne and I also got to do some much-needed shopping and I discovered that there’s a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream store at the train station (so exciting!).  I’ll have to go back there again next time...

Finally doing my job!

So, we’ve finally come to Wednesday, October 5th (this is how behind I am... but don’t worry I’ll catch up with all the main points this week!).  My first three days of school were at Hashi junior high (my main school)!  It was really awesome to meet the students and teachers and everyone made me feel welcome, so I felt very grateful.  It was finally decided that I’d get a ride to school most days with Miyu-sensei, the Japanese teacher at the middle school, since she lives in my neighborhood.  I’ll admit I was worried at first because I wondered if we’d be able to communicate at all, but as it turns out Miyu-sensei remembers a surprising number of English words from her school days.  So we end up doing hand motions plus some random words to get our ideas across (it’s actually kind of fun).  So as I said my main school is Hashi JHS, but I also have three elementary schools that I visit two days a week: Michiue, Hayai, and Shiroharu.  Michiue and Hayai are in the same building and are located next to Hashi JHS; I switch off between one or the other each Tuesday.  I’m supposed to go to Shiroharu every Monday but due to some holidays and other events my first day of class there won’t be until Halloween. 

At Hashi junior high I had to introduce myself in English and Japanese in front of all the students and teachers during an assembly... I'll admit it was a bit stressful.  It’s probably good that I wanted to keep my English phrases simple though because that meant that I kept my Japanese simple too!  I basically said, “Good morning!  My name is ___.  I come from Massachusetts in America.  I came to Japan last week.  Let’s learn English together!  My Japanese isn’t very good but it’s nice to meet you!”.

For my first classes at each school I did a self-intro including telling them about my home state, hobbies, favorite things, birthday, family members, and anything else I could think of...  Next the students would ask me questions, some that come to mind are: How tall are you?! (5’7” = 170 cm, taller than most Japanese women), Who’s your favorite actor? (I said Hugh Laurie), What’s your blood type? (I tested before I came to Japan since I knew it was a common conversation topic, type O), What’s your favorite anime? (some students got SUPER excited when I said it was Fullmetal Alchemist, luckily I knew the title in Japanese too: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, one student gave me a poster of the anime that he had in his bag).  In the elementary schools I brought in a stuffed animal to pass around too (a penguin my sister gave me), and some pictures of me from when I was their age.  The elementary schools are pretty high tech so I was able to show some pictures on their TV via the computer as well.  All in all it was fun!

At Hashi I met the three English teachers whom I will be working with: Hisaki-sensei (who has been there the longest), Tamaru-sensei (recently certified as an English teacher), and Takato-sensei (another assistant English teacher).  Usually it's Takato-sensei who tells me where I should be going each day and answers any questions that I have.  I’m very lucky though that the teachers are so nice and willing to include me in class (I’ve heard a few horror stories about ALTs who are basically ignored by the JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English).  Once I’m more used to being in class and interacting with the students (and the teachers get to know me better) I think they would be willing to listen to my ideas about activities and games we could do in class.  I also passed out the gifts from the US that I brought with me (jam, candles, pictures, candy) and the teachers at the various schools really appreciated it.  I’ve received some candy and treats in return since then!

And now for a random food item I tried and really liked (possibly because no one told me what it was beforehand): gyutan (cow tongue) a local Miyagi specialty that tastes kind of like roast beef.  I recommend it!

Call me “Warm Bandage”: Master of the Red Tape!

One of the first work-related things I did was go across the road from the Board of Education to apply for an alien registration card (I said I came from Vulcan... jk).  This process wasn’t hard to do since my supervisor was there to tell me where to sign and whatnot (thank you Suzuki-san!).  I was told to expect the official card to arrive in a few weeks and was given a receipt saying that I had applied for it (by law I have to apply within the first three months of my residency).  I did some other paperwork as well including applying for pension, health insurance, and signing up for a Japanese-by-mail language course run by JET (the first textbook will arrive in November!).  So, a lot of red tape...

On a more-interesting note, I was given my very own personal seal/stamp (known as a hanko) that can be used in place of a signature and is often required on Japanese documents.  In my case the hanko has Chinese characters (kanji) with the same sounds as my first name but the kanji themselves have their own meanings as well so my hanko can be translated as “warm bandage”.  It’s kind of a strange-sounding name I suppose but I’m hoping that I can live up to it and help people recover... haha.  I think the people at the Board of Education are hoping for this as well because there are many other kanji that could have been used for my name but they took the time to choose some less-common ones with that specific meaning.

The next day Suzuki-san and I drove to the bank in the early afternoon and while we were there the bank hours ended (they close at 3 PM, which is slightly more ridiculous than in the US banks closing at 4).  Instead of throwing us out the bank employees merely locked the front door to signify that they weren’t accepting anyone else and began to close down their stations; they still dealt with Suzuki-san and me normally.  Metal window shades automatically covered all the windows and doors (which was a little scary) but when Suzuki-san saw that I was nervous about it he pointed out the side door which was still uncovered.  I gave the bank 1000 yen to start my account (which is equivalent to about $14 with the weak dollar right now).  Then we waited about half an hour for my account to be activated but they were able to do it that very day!  I got a bank book and was told that my bank card would arrive within a few days.  I got to use my hanko when signing up for the account and I also signed my name using katakana (a style of Japanese writing used for foreign words, it reminds me of using italics when using a foreign word in English).

Once I get my alien registration card I will be able to deal with even more red tape!   < 9_9 > ... haha.  I’ll have to get a Japanese cell phone and an internet router.  Japan is known for its high speed internet but since much of the landline network in my area was damaged during the tsunami most people use small, portable internet routers which convert cell phone signals into wireless internet (pretty cool, right?).  I’ll have to buy one at a cell phone store and pay a monthly fee but it’s convenient that I’ll be able to bring the internet to school with me if I want to! 

Yabusame and the Golden Temple

So, I survived my first few days in Japan and successfully reached my first weekend!  Anne had already planned a trip for us to visit some of the other JETs around the area and to go and see a yabusame competition in Iwate prefecture.  Yabusame combines horseback riding and archery with competitors attempting to hit three targets in a time limit of just 13 seconds.  But the first thing we did over the weekend was go shopping in the "nearby" city of Tome.  Since we don't have a car yet Anne has been relying on Suzuki-san to bring her to Tome to get essential things… like food.  She said that she thought it was starting to wear down on him though because he kept asking her if any of her friends could drive instead.  But, on the night we had dinner with Suzuki-san and Kachou, Anne asked Suzuki-san if driving to Tome on Saturday morning would be alright (when Kachou was right in front of them so basically Suzuki-san couldn't refuse).  Though in Japan people rarely ever outright refuse anything... so there can be a lot of beating around the bush.

Later on Saturday night Natalie, one of the JETs from Kesennuma, came to pick us up in her little car and we drove to her apartment which was about an hour and a half away.  We planned to sleep over at Natalie's place so I brought along my futon and pajamas.  Seeing another apartment made me appreciate how spacious mine is; Natalie's kitchen is only really large enough for one person to stand in and her living room also serves as her bedroom.  Though Natalie's apartment does have other things like a couch and desk which she inherited from her predecessor.  In the morning I saw what else the apartment has: a view.

The view from Natalie's place

Natalie made Anne and me some amazing Swedish pancakes with real maple syrup (Natalie is from Canada so she was really happy when she discovered that one of the international food stores in Sendai had Canadian maple syrup).  Around noon we headed into the city of Kesennuma to meet up with another JET, Drew (who was nice and can read kanji really well so getting to the yabusame competition was a bit easier).  I left my futon at Drew's apartment so that there would be more space in Natalie's car and then the four of us headed out.  The drive to Iwate prefecture was really pretty with golden rice paddies, a few villages and towns, and mountains always in the background.  It probably took about two hours to get to the general location of the competition but we got a bit lost as well.  Poor Natalie was getting very hungry by the end of the drive and so I gave her some peanut butter crackers from my bag (thank you Grammy!).  We caught the end of the yabusame competition but were too late to see Erin perform (Erin is a 5th year JET from Iwate, she became interested in yabusame since she already knew how to ride a horse).  Erin and Anne actually went to the same college in the US (small world, right?).  So we got to see some team yabusame runs where three competitors gallop past (and try to hit) the targets all in a row!  We also got to sample some of the delicious festival food from the various food stands.

Here are some of the yabusame competitors in traditional clothes

On the way back to Kesennuma we stopped by a World Heritage Site - Chusonji temple in the town of Hiraizumi.  It was almost closing time so we had to rush a bit but we saw the golden hall (built in the 12th century!) which is basically a gold covered, hand crafted, mother-of-pearl inlaid mausoleum.  It was really amazing and incredibly detailed, but we weren't allowed to take pictures since it is inside a Buddhist temple.  All I can say is… you have to see it with your own eyes!

Here's a view from outside of the temple, at this time of the year the rice fields turn golden so it's know as the "golden time"

So, it was a fun and productive weekend!

Meetings and Greetings

After finally arriving in Minamisanriku I met my roommate, Anne, and my supervisor from the Board of Education, Suzuki-san.  I was feeling pretty worn out at that point (and a bit shell shocked from the sight of the town) so I'm not sure if I said very many coherent things to them on the way to the apartment.  Suzuki-san said that he'd pick us up again in a few hours to go out to dinner with him and his supervisor.  I just wanted to rest for a while but I figured that it really would be best to try to stay in the time zone and stay awake until at least 8 PM.  In the meantime Anne showed me around my new home.  It's very spacious by Japanese standards but it is kind of an old building.  The refrigerator, TV, washing machine, microwave oven, and rice cooker are all new though and were donated by the Japanese Red Cross.  Some things I noticed right away were the huge closets, tatami reed mats which cover some of the floors and are very nice to walk on, futons instead of beds, heated kotatsu tables (amazing invention!), and that the heated water system is kind of complicated (I'll explain this in another post).

Suzuki-san and Kachou (the section chief of the Board of Education) arrived around 6 PM.  We headed back toward the fancy hotel I had passed earlier known as the Hotel Kanyo.  Since the tsunami hit it has pretty much the only restaurant in town.  The food was probably very good but according to my stomach it was 5 or 6 in the morning and I couldn't eat very much (darn jet-lag!).

 

Here's the ramen that I tried- real ramen, not from a cup!

Anne did most of the talking on our end and translated for me a bit though I could actually follow the conversation fairly well.  Luckily the dinner was over quickly and so I pretty much just unfolded my futon and fell asleep right away.

Friday the 30th was dedicated to filling out paperwork and visiting the schools where I would be working to briefly introduce myself to the staff (these kinds of greetings are known as aisatsu).  I also met with the principals/vice-principals over hot tea along with Suzuki-san and Kachou so that they could meet me and decide how I was going to get to school everyday.  Basically Anne and I don't have a car and can't legally get one until one of us has her alien registration card.  I filled out a form to get one but it probably won't arrive until next week.  Anne wanted to fill out a form but was unable to her first month and a half in Japan since the temporary government office didn't have the paperwork (all of their copies had been washed away in the tsunami).  So Kachou had to ask the principals whether it would be possible for another teacher or staff member to pick me up and drive me to school since it's definitely too far to walk.  I couldn't really understand most of what was said during all the conversations but I could tell that no one wanted to suggest a person right away.  Everyone took turns saying, "Hmmmm.... what should we do?" with many long intakes of breath as though proposing an idea might be painful.  Finally a few names were mentioned and the meeting ended though I had the feeling that it still wasn't 100% decided.  I guess this is what group decision-making in Japan is all about... haha.

I met a funny teacher at one of the elementary schools when I was introducing myself (named Shuu-sensei).  He spoke English pretty well and was able to get me to understand his Japanese too.  He asked me how old I was and I told him, "Twenty-three," then he said, "Me too!".  I couldn't help gaping at his response since he has graying hair and wrinkles and definitely doesn't look like a twenty-something year old.  He said that he had been kidding but he thought that my reaction was hilarious.

Entering Minamisanriku...

Well it's been more than a few days since my last post and part of the reason was that I was busy (especially over the weekend) but another part part of me just didn't want to write because I knew it would be depressing…  But enough is enough!

I knew beforehand that the main part of Minamisanriku town had been destroyed in the tsunami but the knowledge didn't prepare me for what I saw… 

The bus had been heading through a narrow valley road for several minutes before we found ourselves on an open plain with steep hills like walls on both sides.  Pine trees were growing very close together on the hills and that added to the walled-in effect even more.  All of a sudden the bus descended a few more feet down a hill and I saw that the front rows of trees on both sides were brown and dead.  A shiver ran down my spine as I realized that we had reached the tsunami zone.  The reason the trees were so visible was because the houses and other buildings were gone.  It probably wasn't so empty right after the tsunami but since then much of the rubble and debris has been taken away, leaving empty space.  I could still see the foundations where buildings had been.  Closer to the shore there was more rubble and garbage though much of it had been separated into piles.  I saw a pile of rubble about 10 feet tall with a pile of crushed cars next to it about the same height.  There were also piles of wires and metal.  Some areas still had unorganized debris.  I saw the remains of buildings on the ground with a few pieces of twisted metal sticking out, glowing in the sunlight.  I saw a car tire caught on a vertical piece of wood and wondered if a person had placed it like that as a grave marker or if the water had randomly placed it there.  I saw a small row boat sitting on a house's foundation and later I saw a car in almost perfect condition perched on top of a three story building.  The train tracks which had been visible to my left through most of the bus ride were suddenly twisted and cut off near the tree line, about 50 feet later they started up again and headed into a tunnel through a hill, I wondered if they would reappear on the other side.

 The tire on the piece of wood.

Abruptly the bus left the first area as the road curved north to hug the coastline.  We headed to higher ground and passed by many houses that were perfectly fine (it was a little disturbing how normal everything was).  There was a fancy hotel on the peak overlooking the ocean, I found out later that it had been used as an evacuation center and that mostly volunteers stay there now.  I saw the train tracks again to the right of the bus, they were on a raised railroad bridge about 20 feet off the ground and still intact (from what I could tell); it must have been a very scenic coastal ride in the past.

The bus headed down the hill and into what was once Minamisanriku center; it was pretty much a huge field of rubble with a few cleared roads here and there.  Before I came I would have expected that most of the cleanup would have been done at this point (but I suppose if one has literally thousands of pounds worth of rubble it will take a long time to clear).  I was slightly horrified to see that the road we were on seemed a bit flooded but the bus carefully went through the large puddles of water and headed for the only building in the area that had more or less survived the tsunami, the hospital.  Yesterday I asked if the hospital was still being used but I was told that the sea water had gone up to the fourth floor and the building is no longer stable.

One of the piles of burnable debris near the edge of town.

Apparently the reason that the road was flooded is that after the Great East Japan Earthquake and following tsunami the coastline dropped 1 meter in height and now during high tide the seawater often encroaches on the remaining roads.  You might ask yourself why the people in the area would want to rebuild in the first place with all the trouble they have gone through.  But this town has been here for generations and even though there are risks to living here I believe that one cannot give up one's home just because there are risks.  Any location in this world has associated risks after all!  You might ask yourself why I decided to accept my position at Minamisanriku too.  Well, while teaching a foreign language is a great challenge and a worthy task in its own right I also believe that helping a community and helping my fellow humans in their time of need is also very important.  I also know that I would have regretted not going just because of the location.

Anyway, this picture was actually taken in Kesennuma to the north of Minamisanriku and it's of a house that withstood the tsunami but was recently torn down for structural reasons (which is why the wood looks so fresh).  I couldn't help feeling sad about the forgotten stuffed animal though.

Don't worry, I'm alive!

I finally got access to the internet though it can be a bit unreliable at times.  I've arrived in the town where I'll be staying for the next 10 months!  For this post I'll just tell you about how the journey was and for the next post I'll tell you my first impressions of the town.

So, I was scheduled to fly to JFK and then go on to Narita but my flight to New York was so delayed due to maintenance that I was put on a flight to Detroit instead.  Getting on my flight to Tokyo was easy and the flight was good with only minor turbulence.  During the 13 hour flight I watched some of my favorite anime, Fullmetal Alchemist, on my laptop.  After watching an episode I noticed the young woman to my right seemed to be watching out of the corner of her eye so I asked her if she liked the show.  As it turned out she also liked it so I put the video to full-screen mode and let her watch too (yay for anime-camaraderie!).

Once I got to Narita I was informed that my checked bags had gone to New York instead (not really surprising) and so I gave them my Japanese address so that they could be shipped to me later.  My roommate (Anne) had suggested that I pack a week's worth of clothes in my carry-on anyway so I wasn't very worried.  I've got to hand it to the people at JET though, they are very organized.  With their help the other late-arriving JETs and I made it to the hotel with no problems.

I took some pictures of the hotel which I found to be amusing:

The room came with complementary yukata (pajamas) and slippers

The toilet came with several functions including a water spray and a seat warmer

 The bedside table had a copy of both the New Testament (which I was surprised to see) 

and The Teaching of Buddha

 

I took two trains the morning of the 29th: the first to Tokyo station and the second was the shinkansen up to Sendai.  The train rides were very pleasant and I had my first Japanese-only conversation when I asked the snack-selling lady for some orange juice.  Tokyo was as big as I had heard because it is so sprawling; many of the houses and apartment buildings are small though so I imagine that if one is down in the city it actually wouldn't feel so large.  Along the way I saw my first Japanese McDonald's, a bicycle parking lot, and Japanese-style graveyards (where there are family gravestones but where no one is actually buried since most people are cremated).  At one point on the shinkansen there was an announcement that the train would be split in two with one section headed north and the other west (that's time-efficient Japan for you!).

 The outskirts of Tokyo (sorry the pictures are skewed it's probably because the bullet train is so fast!)

 Finally out of the city!  Notice the mountains in the background

 Just outside of Sendai

In Sendai I met one of the JETs in charge of the area and he gave me a very brief orientation and lots of packets with information about Miyagi prefecture.  While there I tried to eat lunch but my stomach was still convinced that it was midnight and I didn't feel very hungry (darn jet-lag!).  While in the city I noticed several people wearing socks with sandals, a fashion which I always hoped would catch on in the US (but so far no such luck)!

From Sendai I took the bus to my town but I'll tell you all about that in my next post.

Ready to go...?

So, I've finally finished packing!  It took longer than expected mostly because I was trying to avoid the 50 lb limit, and my large suitcase is now 49 lbs!  I'm so glad that checked luggage gets transferred when one changes planes...

Anyway, my first flight tomorrow will take me to New York, then I'll fly straight from JFK to Narita airport in Tokyo.  The second flight will take approximately 14 hours... ugh.  The good news is that I'm often able to sleep on planes (and in cars when I'm not driving).   I plan to play around with my new Nintendo 3DS as well since I recently acquired the Legend of Zelda game (the same one I played as a kid with my brother)!  Also my laptop batteries last for a pretty long time so I'll probably watch a movie too.

Once I arrive at Narita I'll spend the night at a nearby hotel then the next morning I'll be heading north on a train and then transferring to the bullet train (or shinkansen in Japanese).  After that I'll arrive in Sendai, the capital city of Miyagi, followed by a bus ride to my new town...  I can tell already that I'm going to be exhausted.  Hopefully the internet will be up and running at my apartment, but if not it may take a few days for my next post.

And so the journey begins!

Buying trinkets and gifts

In addition to the list of tedious things to do from last time, there are also a few fun things that I still want to buy before I leave including: stickers, toys, and teacher gifts.

Basically I was told by other JET participants that having a ton of stickers would be really useful during my classes since they don't take up a lot of space in my bags and it's a nice reward to give to the students!  At first I was only looking for stickers with English words on them (it reminded me of my high school Spanish class where we'd get stickers saying "¡Fantástico!" and whatnot) but recently I've been picking out others with US cultural themes as well.  Today I got a bunch of Halloween/holiday stickers, and others with Disney characters on them... oh America, I guess this is what I think of when I think of you... haha.  I've also been buying other small toys and nick-knacks that can easily fit in my suitcase.  I had a lot of fun at the dollar store buying things like shaped erasers, children's books, grow-your-own dinosaurs, plastic watches, a cute embroidery kit, a couple calendars, some Red Sox baseball themed items (I hope they get into the playoffs!), and candy.  My boyfriend tells me that I'll be a popular teacher with all the toys I'm bringing... hopefully that will be the case!

In addition to the class-related items I'm bringing I'll also be buying some gifts for my fellow teachers over the next few days.  Gift giving and receiving is an essential part of Japanese culture that is very structured.  For example, on Valentine's Day in Japan girls give the boys they like (and boys they work with) chocolates, then on March 14th the boys are expected to reciprocate by giving the girls a white-colored gift in return (this Japanese holiday is known as White Day).  Luckily as a foreigner I'm not expected to know/understand all the idiosyncrasies of gift giving and receiving but according to my official JET General Information Handbook it is polite to give small gifts to the people I will be working closely with and to my supervisors when I first start work.  The gifts will preferably be things that represent the area I come from so I've been trying to think of Massachusetts or Boston-related gifts to bring.  So far I've decided to look for maple syrup, dried cranberries, and maybe some saltwater taffy.  I'll also be printing out some picturesque photos of my hometown to give as well.

In other news I had a lovely Skype conversation with Anne, the girl who is going to be my roommate in Japan.  I had a lot of questions for her and she had a ton of advice to give and so we ended up talking for a good two hours; my brother was impressed that I was able to talk so much to someone I've never met.  Anne studied a lot of Japanese in college, completed a year in the JET program a few years ago and now is back for round two!  I think we may be the only JETs in all of Japan who are sharing an apartment, since the town's situation is very unique.  But I think we'll get along well based on our conversation!