Going Home and Flight Difficulties

So yeah, I'm currently in the process of going home for Christmas.  My journey began yesterday (almost a full 24 hours ago now) when Anne drove me to Tome so that I could catch the 7:30 PM bus to Sendai.  That bus arrived in Sendai around 9 PM and I spent my time waiting for my next bus (an overnight bus) by looking around a bookstore.  I caught that one at 10:30 PM and it drove through the night.  We arrived at Narita Airport in Tokyo around 6:30 AM.  Unfortunately my flight wasn't scheduled until 5:30 PM (as I'm writing it's already 5:49 PM and we haven't entered the aircraft yet) so I had quite a bit of time in the airport...  You may wonder why I decided to take the overnight bus this time around and the reason is simple - it's about half the price of the shinkansen (bullet train).

My day in the airport wasn't too bad actually.  I spent the morning going around the different shops and doing a bit more Christmas shopping.  Next from 1 PM - 4 PM I scheduled time in a "nap" room (technically it's called a Day Room) - you can probably guess what I did there.  It had a twin-sized bed I could take a nap in and there was a shower I could use as well (there wasn't a toilet in the room for some reason though).  Anyway, I attempted to take a nap for a couple of hours and also charged my laptop and whatnot at the same time.

As I mentioned, my flight was scheduled for around 5:30 PM but I found out that there was a delay as soon as I showed up after using the nap room.  My connecting flight in San Francisco was already cutting it close in terms of connection time (especially since I'll have to go through customs once I'm in the US).  So they called me up to the desk and basically told me that there was no way that I would make the connection and offered to reserve a seat in the next SF to Boston flight.  So at least the airlines (ANA - All Nippon Airways) is being nice about it.  I feel bad though since my mom had offered to pick me up and with the new flight I'll probably arrive in Boston around 11:30 PM... (sorry Mom!).

Anyway, in other news, here are some things that have happened recently:

I saw Santa Claus at the local Aeon (mall), he was even speaking English, but his accent was pretty bad so I couldn't really understand him. 

It reminded me a little of the KFC guy (see pictures below).

Yup, they have KFC in Japan (are you secretly amazed or does this just make you worry about the state of the world?)

 But I think that the colonel looks a bit different than he does in the US (maybe it's just me).  But the Santa I saw at Aeon looked a bit like this guy.

 The teachers and students at my school received some chocolate bars from a charity organization in the US.  They turned out to be Hershey bars and they had a special Christmas message on the front.

 Here's the message.

I heard a couple of teachers at my school wondering about it when one of them said something like, "Oh, wait, I see.  It says, 'Joy to the Earth!'"  I chuckled a bit but decided not to correct him (I mean, it's very close isn't it?).  Basically, I can forgive something like that, but not something like this:

Grrr.

Anyway, we're finally boarding now so I guess I'm off!

Autumn and school happenings

The leaves have been changing and now most of them have fallen.  The area still looks fairly green though due to the swaths of evergreen trees on the hills; many of the trees that died after being exposed to the salt water of the tsunami have been cut down as well.

I took some pictures of the trees that still had colored leaves a few weeks ago so I figured that I should post them.

A tree near the middle school in the area.

I do love maple trees in the fall.

Japanese maple trees tend to have purplish-red leaves in the summer but in the fall they become even more beautiful.

This bug's camouflage isn't working so well for him on the concrete.  Then again, with all the green leaves disappearing from the area I suppose being on a tree wouldn't be very good either.

More buildings have been taken down over the past few months (though this one seemed to have been in pretty good condition, considering).

Recently the cleanup has also been focusing on the foundations of houses and other buildings; most houses in Japan don't have basements but they do have concrete foundations.  When the tsunami destroyed and washed away the houses often the only thing remaining to show that a house had been there was the foundation.  The de-construction workers (as I call them) use a machine similar to a digger (those ones with the long arm with a shovel at the end) but instead of a shovel they have a large metal pick that is similar to a jackhammer at the end.  The long-armed jackhammer is used to break up the foundations, leaving just a pile of rubble behind.

The sun has been setting around 4:15- 4:30 PM so when I'm driving home from school I can see the sunset.  On the day I took this picture the high tide had partially flooded the coastal area (and the road) near my place.

Actually it flurried a bit last week... so we changed over to our winter tires on Friday.  It's illegal to be within 50 meters of snow without snow tires on your car (or something like that), haha.  We also got some thermal curtains for the apartment; they have a layer of aluminum foil inside of them.  Supposedly there will be a 7 degree Celsius difference between using the thermal curtains and using plain cloth curtains.

Speaking of curtains, that reminds me of a funny thing that happened at the middle school about a month ago.  At the time it was a bit chilly outside but not cold enough to turn on the heater; in fact, the window was open and bright afternoon sunlight was streaming in.  The English teacher was explaining a new grammar point and I was walking around the room making sure everyone was paying attention.  I heard a whispered conversation going on in the back of the classroom near the windows so I headed over to see what the problem was.  A few of the boys seemed to be having a conversation about English (of all things); I heard one boy say, "Use 'Can I'," then another boy said, "No, 'May I'."  As I watched, the boy closest to the window abruptly raised his hand.

Shingo-sensei: Yes?
Student: May I close the window?
Shingo-sensei:  Nice English.  Yes, you may.
(the student closes the curtain)
Shingo-sensei: ... That wasn't the window, that was the curtain.
(he has the students repeat the new word several times)
Shingo-sensei:  But good job.  One point!
Student: Yes!

(I give the student a sticker)

Actually in this particular class I have been passing out rather plain stickers that are round with a gold star in the center.  The same student who asked the question is obsessed with collecting them because he says that they are like Dragon Balls.  Dragon Ball was an incredibly popular manga/anime series that ran for many years.  I remember watching some of the dubbed episodes back in the early 90's. 

Meanwhile at Hayai Elementary I had lunch with the first graders (always a treat).  This particular class asked me some of the usual questions and then asked a question using a word I was unfamiliar with.

Student A: 好きな生き物何ですか。             (What's your favorite ikimono?)
Me:  いきもの？                                             (Ikimono?)
Student A: はい、好きな生き物何ですか。  (Yes, what's your favorite?)
Me:「いきもの」は何ですか。                     (What's an 'ikimono'?)
(at this point the teacher was listening in but decided to wait and see if the kids would be able to explain the word to me)
Student A:  生き物は。。。                            (An ikimono is...)
Student B:   動物です。                                   (It's an animal.)

I looked it up later and apparently an ikimono is a 'living thing'.  I know it can be hard for little kids to explain new words to people, so I was happy that the teacher let the kids try to explain the word to me.

After asking me some more questions the class became obsessed with my (completely plain and uninteresting) earrings; as I've mentioned before, pierced ears are not very common in Japan and schools often have bans on students wearing real or clip-on earrings.  As a result many of the girls (and boys) in the class ended up poking my ears quite a few times and asking me questions about them.  The girls asked if they hurt (at the time a boy was tugging on one, which did kind of hurt) so I said "Not usually" as I swatted the boy's hand away.  They next asked me about my eye color (whether it was gray or blue) and I said blue.  I told them that my dad has brown eyes but my mom and sister and I have blue eyes and my brother has green eyes.  They were completely shocked and asked me to verify several times with questions like, "Does your dad really have brown eyes???"  I suppose family members having different eye colors is a... foreign... concept to them, haha.  A few periods later the first grade teacher came up to me in the hallway and said that even after I left the students wouldn't stop talking about eye color.

And now, it's time for Let's Learn Engrish!

'Engrish' is what happens when you take a statement in Japanese (or other East Asian languages) and plug it through an automatic translator (or just look up the words individually in the dictionary) but then don't have a fluent English speaker check the results.  For humorous examples see this site.  Though I guess it's similar to American t-shirts or jewelry pieces with 'Chinese characters' on them that probably sound equally strange (or nonsensical) to Chinese-speakers.

Today's example is fairly tame (with two things I find strange about it) but since only two words are printed, that's actually quite impressive...

1.  It sounds like it's a cookie made of squid (it was just a sugar cookie)
2.  There was only one cookie

I would change it to: Squid-Shaped Cookie or I would make the wrapped clear (so you can see it's not made of squid) and call it a Squid Cookie.

That's all for now.

Osaka- it's okay! (big trip part 4)

On Wednesday, August 8th after visiting the monkeys we grabbed a local train from Kyoto station to Osaka and walked to our next hostel.  By that time it was around 2 in the afternoon so we were able to check-in and relax for a little while.  I mentioned to Mikey that our hostel offered an izakaya (bar) tour at 7 PM where we could meet some fellow travelers from the hostel and hear stories from one of the hostel employees so we decided to sign up for that.  In this way we met Mr. Yano, an older guy who does maintenance at the hostel and loves to drink with foreigners and practice his English.  When we arrived at the izakaya we went upstairs to a private room that had been set aside for us (maybe the izakaya owners don't want too many crazy, sake-drinking foreigners to be making a ruckus downstairs).  At first Mikey and I were the only guests there but Mr. Yano assured us that some other guests from the hostel would stop by later.  Mr. Yano proceeded to give us a slip of paper with convenient Osaka-ben (Osaka-area dialect/words) written on it. 

Such phrases included:
maido = "hello" (differs from Tokyo-area "konnichiwa")
ohkini = "thank you" (differs from Tokyo-area "arigatou")
beppin = "beautiful woman" (differs from Tokyo-area "bijin")
nambo = "How much?" (differs from Tokyo-area "ikura")

Mr. Yano also gave us both a funny sticker that had a picture of his face on it along with his favorite English phrase "It's okay!"...  I can't even guess how many times Mikey and I heard that phrase that night...  Apparently Mr. Yano has only been learning English for a few years so he relied heavily on hand-gestures to get his meanings across (he was quite skilled at that though so it wasn't too bad).  He asked us where we had visited in Japan and whether we had been to Nara Park (which is famous for its beauty and for the many deer that roam it).  The deer are supposedly very pushy there.  People are allowed to feed them deer-food so the deer will pretty much mug you trying to see if you have any (Mr. Yano's impression of the deer was very funny).  His story reminded me of a bad experience I had in an Australian petting zoo where a kangaroo snatched a bag of kangaroo-food from me (this was when I was studying abroad in college)... haha.

Soon after that two other hostel-guests arrived (I will call them Jeff and Millie).  They were cousins from Belgium and were also godfather and goddaughter (Jeff was a good 10 years older than Millie and he had promised her that once she graduated from high school that he would take her to Japan since she had always wanted to go).  Jeff spoke very good English but Millie preferred to use French and also knew some Japanese from watching J-dramas (TV dramas from Japan).  We ended up hanging out with them several times since they were nice and easy-going people.

Mr. Yano welcomed the newcomers and proceeded to tell Millie and I that we were kawaii, the Japanese word for cute.  He said that his wife on the other hand was not kawaii, she was kowai (scary) and would often yell at him for staying out late drinking.  This story made us feel a bit bad since we were keeping him out late (and he was drinking a fair amount of sake and plum wine).  But after we had all eaten dinner at the izakaya he suggested that we go to a different bar down the street (maybe he was avoiding his wife?).  Along the way to the new bar Mr. Yano taught us a very amusing game that is played in the Osaka area.  Basically you pretend to have a katana (Japanese sword) and "slash" a random person (whom you don't know) in the street.  The "slashed" person then pretends to die.  The same game can be played with a fake gun (in which case you "shoot" a random person).  To demonstrate, Mr. Yano prompted my brother to "slash" a random woman sitting with two of her friends at an outdoor restaurant.  He did and the woman "died" while clutching her side.  Mr. Yano then had Mikey pull out a "gun" and "shoot" one of the woman's friends.  She did a very realistic jerk as the "bullet" hit her so she must play the game fairly often... haha.

After having more to drink at the other bar we were all feeling bad about keeping Mr. Yano out so late so we told him that we were going back to the hostel (Millie said that she wanted to go to bed while Jeff and Mikey decided to go to a different bar in that area instead).  Back at the hostel the receptionist was still there since she said she had to wait for some other new guests to arrive so that she could let them in the building.  We sat down and talked with her.  We told her that we had been out with Mr. Yano and she asked us if we had heard about his kowai wife.  When we said yes she told us that in reality Mr. Yano isn't even married, he just likes to tell that story!

There were hardly any places open in the area around the hostel (since it was a Wednesday night and we were some distance from Osaka Station).  So Jeff, Mikey, and I went into a random restaurant that claimed to have Belgium beer.  The owner of the place (who had been drinking at the bar section and seemed tipsy) came over to chat with us and ended up sitting with us for quite a while (I think she was interested in us since we were foreigners and she wanted to practice her English).  The more that she drank though, the less sense her English made and Mikey and Jeff kept looking at me to translate (even though she was still mostly speaking English - I guess I still understood her the best).  It was kind of awkward (and one of the waiters who seemed to have an interesting sense of humor kept laughing at our situation from across the room).  But the owner did give the guys some free drinks (and I got a gelato) so... all's well that ends well?  In the end Mikey and I stayed up later that I had intended so we slept in a bit the next morning.

Mikey said that he still wanted to go to an aquarium (since we hadn't ended up going to the one in Himeji).  So around noon we grabbed some bento (packed lunches) from the nearby supermarket and took the subway to the Osaka aquarium.  And now for a picture-tour.

Approaching the Osaka Aquarium.

Penguins!  I love penguins.

The aquarium had a nice setup where you were able to see each large tank at multiple levels.

There were several large rays.

These small fish look like a swirling cloud.

A rather ugly fish.

Cute clown fish!

Tiny string-like fish(?)

Dolphins!

More swirling fish.

In other news, I may have seen a monkey crossing the road on my way to school on Wednesday... is that even possible? 

More soon (hopefully).

The Culture Festival 2012 and Halloween

So, due to a special request from my blog's "most loyal reader" (aka my brother) I'm taking a break from my continuing saga to talk about this year's culture festival at Hashi Middle School.  As you may recall from my post last year, the bunkasai (culture festival) is an annual event at every middle school in Japan.  They are all a little bit different but most involve decorating the school with various art and school projects, the students singing numerous songs (usually each grade and each class sings a song), performances by the school band, and often include class skits.  My school also has a talent show and gender-swap competition at the end of the day.  The whole culture festival ran from 9 AM to 5 PM on Sunday (the kids and other teachers went to school on Saturday the 27th as well to set up and practice everything but they also got Monday and Tuesday off from school to make up for it).

This year I tried to help out more before the festival (mostly just with the posters that the students were making that explained some of the special events that have taken place this school-year so far).  I also asked the students about their class performances beforehand (though some were unable to explain their skits very well...).  Thus I found out that one first-year class was doing Snow White (with six dwarfs instead of seven), class 2-2 was doing The Emperor's New Clothes, class 2-1 was doing Momotarou, and one of the third-year classes was doing an original story called Moshi-Dora.  During the festival itself I discovered that the other first-year class was doing Alice in Wonderland while the other third year class was doing a rendition of Little Red Riding Hood.

I also wanted to do something during the festival itself (like participate in a skit or sing a song).  Last year all the full-time teachers sang a song together so I was hoping to participate in that as well this year.  Unfortunately when I asked the teachers they said they weren't doing a song (I think they had been told that the festival had to end by 5 PM this year).  But since the festival was right before Halloween I figured that I could at least wear my Halloween costume, Link from the Legend of Zelda video game series (the Ocarina of Time version, in case any geeks were wondering).  I told Risa-sensei about my costume and she said that wearing it during the festival would be fine. 

On the day of the festival I brought my costume along to change into later (I figured I could wear it during the afternoon segment).  When I arrived Risa-sensei said that she had decided to dress up as well (as an old man since she had the wig for it) and said that we could both be in the gender-swap competition that way.  I'll admit I was surprised that I would be going on stage (and would apparently be interviewed in Japanese) with only a few hours to prepare...  Risa-sensei thought it would be funny if I did all the talking between the two of us (as we were going to be interviewed at the same time).  So we came up with four questions and answers (and I memorized the answers in Japanese which wasn't too bad except that I had to memorize the word jitakukeibiin which means "I guard my home" as Risa-sensei's answer to the question "What is your job?" - which basically is a long-winded way of saying "I'm unemployed."

But before that we were able to watch the class performances which were each about five minutes long; here are some brief descriptions/reviews of the skits:

1-1:  Alice in Wonderland - Well, I think that their skit was based on Alice in Wonderland anyway since it seemed from their props like the five main characters were very small in size.  The kids weren't using microphones though so it was almost impossible to hear them.  Some of the other students were dressed as bugs and one of the teachers made a guest appearance as an angel. 

1-2:  Snow White - A surprisingly good performance given that this class has some troublemakers in it (Prince Charming was actually one of the troublemakers so that in itself was funny).  At the end Snow White apparently transformed into a man (the homeroom teacher) when she was kissed by the prince and the spell was broken.

2-1:  Momotarou - (a Japanese myth where a boy born from a giant peach grows up to save his village from a horde of ogres with the help of his friends the dog, monkey, and pheasant).  They missed some of their cues and had some issues with the visuals so it wasn't as good as their practice I saw last Friday.

2-2:  The Emperor's New Clothes - (apparently just called "The Naked Emperor" in Japanese) was pretty good but they played too much music.  I was wondering what they would do when the emperor put on his "new clothes" but they just had the student wear shorts and the same cape he had been wearing in an earlier scene, which worked well.

3-1:  Their rendition of Little Red Riding Hood was hilarious.  Instead of having one they had three Red Riding Hood Sisters (who were the tallest boys in the class from the basketball team).  They went to give their grandmother a gift but were confronted by four wolves and much sword and fist-fighting ensued.

3-2:  Moshi-Dora - Moshi means "if" and Dora can be an abbreviation of dorama, the Japanese word for "drama" but in this case Dora stood for "Doraemon," a cat-shaped robot from the future who is a famous Japanese comic book and anime character.  The plot of the story was "What if our teacher were Doraemon?"  At the end, their homeroom teacher came out in a full Doraemon outfit!

After the skits I got on my costume and participated in the Mister-Misses contest with Risa-sensei (we were the only girls participating).  The kids thought that our costumes were good (I was pleased when I heard some of the boys correctly identify me as Link) and I managed to not mangle my lines too badly so all-in-all it was a success!  The rest of the festival passed in a blur and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that it was 5 o'clock.

On Tuesday I dressed up once again for the kids at Hayai Elementary (since it was the day before Halloween).  At the beginning of the day there was an assembly and I entered the room from the back after I got my costume on (I had attached the ears with the help of spirit gum before I left for school).  During the assembly a couple of the 5th grade girls noticed my costume and kept turning around to stare at me.  The excited look on their faces was priceless!  Then at the end of the assembly the vice-principal told the students to turn around since I had dressed up for them.  A lot of the students were enthusiastic about the costume (though many asked if I was Peter Pan... does he even have pointed ears(?) or Legolas from the Lord of the Rings).  The vice-principal also pulled out a camera and took a picture with all the students (there are only about 60 at Hayai Emelentary) and the teachers (including me).

During class with the fifth graders one of the girls who is a big Legend of Zelda fan got the others to call me "Link-sensei" - which was awesome.  After the lesson the same girl came up to admire my costume close-up; she said that it was very accurate (which pleased me) and pointed out some of the details to one of her friends, "See, this part of the triforce represents courage, this one is power, and this one is wisdom." - she's a smart kid.

During lunch I ate with the third graders and I noticed some of them giving me weird looks from across the classroom.  I told them to ask me questions if they wanted so one girl asked me if my ears were real.  I almost said 'yes' before remembering that I had on the fake ones so I told them that they were rubber...  The kids must have thought that I'd always had pointed ears but they hadn't noticed before... haha.  I should have told them that everyone in the US has pointed ears.  I think some of the confusion was due to the fact that I had arranged my bangs to be covering the seams of the ears so they were fairly well-disguised.  One boy asked me how the ears stayed on and I told him it was with a special glue (I let some of the students tug on them to show that they were on securely).  All-in-all, another fun day.

In other news I saw a spectacular double-rainbow on Wednesday but I didn't grab my camera in time to capture it.  Actually, the weather has been kind of crazy the last couple of days with torrential rainstorms giving way to bright sunlight and even a big thunderstorm last night.  There don't seem to be many thunderstorms in my area of Japan compared to the number I would experience in Massachusetts (especially in the summer) maybe that's why it was humid all summer long, there were no storms to break the humidity.  I'm sure that the weather here can't compare to cyclone Sandy in the US though.

Anyway, have a good weekend!

A Day in Kyoto (big trip part 3)

So, a lot of pictures today (and a few videos too).  Kyoto is definitely a very photogenic city.

On August 7th Mikey and I planned to take the train from Himeji to Kyoto (via Shin-Osaka station) but we ended up running late.  When I woke up I was feeling nauseous (probably due to the heat and humidity).  We decided to take the bus from near the hostel to the shinkansen station but even with that we missed the train.  So we waited in line to ask the shinkansen people what we should do and they told us we could get onto the next train but I'd have to sit in the non-reservation car while Mikey could still sit in the reserved section since he had a JR pass therefore we wouldn't be able to sit together.  As we waited for the train Mikey grabbed me a carbonated drink which helped my stomach somewhat.  But on the first leg of the trip from Himeji to Shin-Osaka I was still feeling quite ill.

At Shin-Osaka we had to wait a few minutes for the next train and at that point I definitely felt like I was going to puke and was looking around for a bathroom (unfortunately those tend to be in the passages beneath the train platforms so it was a bit too far away).  As a side note, in Japan trashcans and recycling bins are kind of rare in both public places and even in train stations where one has already paid to be there.  Strangely there is not that much litter around compared to some US cities I know where there are trash cans everywhere.  Basically in Japan there is a huge social pressure to not be a litterbug so people usually carry their trash with them and throw it out when they can.  Thus I've gotten into the habit of carrying plastic grocery bags with me to use as trash bags and it was very lucky that I had one when I was feeling like I was going to vomit.  You can probably imagine what I used it for (in a somewhat out-of-the-way corner of the station so that I wouldn't give foreigners such a bad name).  And, a few minutes later I found a real, live trashcan so I was even able to dispose of my trash bag.  Afterwards Mikey and I wondered if there was security camera footage of the incident that some Japanese security person had had to watch... awkward.  I still wasn't feeling that great and since we'd had a later start than we had planned we decided to explore some of Kyoto in the afternoon after resting for a few hours and to save the monkeys for the following morning.

Luckily I was able to rest at the hostel (in the wonderful AC) even though it wasn't technically time for check-in yet.  We ate some peanut butter sandwiches (with real American peanut butter- have you even noticed how peanut butter tastes so different depending on what country you're in?).  We also watched a movie on my laptop (Batman Begins that Mikey brought with him from the US).  And I made sure to slowly drink fluids during our break as well.  By around 3:30 I was feeling much better so we decided to go to one of the local shrines.

 

 On the way to Kyoto Station we passed by the Kyoto Tower (which is not as popular as the Tokyo Tower or the new Sky Tree)

As I was trying to figure out how to get to the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine on the Kyoto train map a friendly local came over and she showed us where it was and even wrote down the kanji for me (伏見稲荷大社).  This particular shrine is located on a hill and contains thousands of torii.  

 Here are two trails leading up the mountain, each partially enclosed by hundreds of red torii.  They look a bit like tunnels from this angle but the torii are not connected to each other nor do they support a roof (in fact you can see the sunlight streaming through in between the torii beams).

It was a pretty long hike up (for me since I'm out of shape and had to take breaks pretty often but then again I had been sick earlier in the day too).  Mikey didn't have a problem though.

There were also thousands of stairs...

It took us over an hour to climb up.  On the way we saw preparations for the Gozan no Okuribi festival scheduled for August 16th (too bad we were only in Kyoto for the one day).

We made it to the top of the mountain!  Apparently it's 233 meters (765 feet) tall.

At the summit there's a very old section of the shrine (with stone torii) where people can make offerings and pray for certain things (like to have a child).  FYI, there was not a view of the city since there were too many trees.

There were a bunch of interesting statues of foxes and dogs.  This dog (yes, it really is a dog) has a toy ball.

After our adventures at the shrine we headed back to the hostel.  There were fliers posted on the walls saying that there was a Tanabata festival that evening between the 5th bridge and 7th bridge (I believe) at the river.  We thought that it would be an excellent opportunity to wear our summer festival happi (which I mentioned packing in part 1).

The sign says "Kyou no Tanabata" ("the capital's Tanabata" since Kyoto was the old capital city of Japan).  Underneath are a bunch of candles.

It was pretty crowded and maybe 30% of the other people were dressed for the occasion (though yukata seemed to be more popular than happi).

During Tanabata festivals people write down their wishes and hang them on special trees (or bamboo).

As we walked back from the festival later we encountered the mother of all flies loitering outside of a subway station (the hand in the picture is Mikey's).  After taking this picture, as I was putting away my camera the fly decided to attack me/land on my shorts, which scared me half to death and we ended up running away from the monster fly.

The next morning we caught the train toward the Arashiyama Monkey Park (see their English website here) which is home to about 130 Japanese macaque monkeys.  There was another hike up a mountain to see the monkeys (though luckily much shorter than that of the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine).

This part was difficult on the way up but fun on the way down.  Too bad the whole mountain isn't set up like this (just the section near the kids' playground).

At the monkey-viewing area there was a view of Kyoto, humans, and monkeys.  If you visit in the summer I recommend coming when it's cooler (in the morning) around 9:30 (which I believe is their feeding time).

A mother monkey with her cute baby!

Next to the viewing area is the gift shop and monkey-feeding area.  For 100 yen you can buy a bag of treats to give to the monkeys through the fence.  You aren't allowed to feed the monkeys when you're outside the gift shop area.  Pictured is Mikey giving out some peanuts.

Don't stare at the monkeys in the eye (they find that aggressive and will respond accordingly), just respectfully hand them food while avoiding eye-contact!

At the top the sign it says "Chuui" (Caution)... why is that translated into the much less-serious-sounding "notes"?  Also, I had a hard time following note #3 as I didn't have a bottle, haha.

To beat the heat a bunch of the monkeys were taking a dip in the small pond next to the gift shop.  They were very good swimmers!

 This monkey was drying off in the sun after his dip.

After spending the morning with the monkeys Mikey and I had a truly excellent lunch at a pasta/sandwich restaurant down the road before we caught the train back to Kyoto Station (and then Osaka).

A Day in Himeji (big trip part 2)

I hate you Blogger!
Why do you warn that things won't be saved but then save them anyway?

Anyway, after Blogger messed up my notes for this post on Monday, I was too angry to write.  But now I'm back and will attempt to tell you about August 6th.  Wow, that was already over two months ago.  I really need to type faster...

Mikey and I were a bit tired from our journey to Hiroshima the day before so we decided to hang around Himeji, explore, and take it easy.  It was another brutally humid day so we started out by going to an air-conditioned restaurant to have some brunch.  There I introduced Mikey to the amazing substance known as Japanese-style curry.  It's quite nice, in fact it's one of my favorite Japanese foods (though originally from India it tastes pretty different from Indian curry and often comes with pickled vegetables that you can eat to cut the spice).

We looked at the map that had been given to us at the hostel (one of the owners had circled some of the more interesting places and restaurants for us).  We decided to skip the nearby village where a portion of "the Last Samurai" movie had been shot since neither of us had seen the movie- and instead to try to go to the local aquarium (since they are cool and would definitely have AC)...  We stopped by the tourist information center next to the shinkansen station to find out which bus we would have to take and a very nice lady (with excellent English) listed several possible buses for us.  We got on the proper bus but of course we missed our stop and got off at the next one with the intent of walking back.  The map told us that we were at the Himeji Tegarayamachuo Amusement Park.  We looked inside the gates and saw that it apparently had a water park, the Himeji-shimin Pool, as well!

Mikey loves water parks and I think they can be pleasant, especially on hot days.  So... we decided to go in and check it out!  The water park section was absolutely packed with people and had a couple of slides and one of those lazy rivers that you can float around in.  We walked through the amusement park section too which mostly just had rides for younger kids (and all of them required additional tickets as well- which weren't cheap).  We decided to go back to the hostel to get our bathing suits and then to hang out at the water park.  As we were leaving I asked one of the admission-ladies if we'd be able to leave the park and come back in later.  She said it wasn't allowed so I told her that I had forgotten my bathing suit (well actually I said mizu-fuku "water clothes" since I didn't know the right word).  She got the idea and gave Mikey and me a special tag to show when we got back.  As it turns out I wasn't that far off when I guessed the word for bathing suit - the real word is mizu-gi (gi is just a different word for clothes, just like the gi that practitioners wear for karate).

We went back to the hostel as quickly as possible and we were ready to swim about an hour later.  We spent most of the time floating around the river and chatting and I've gotta say the water felt very refreshing.  There were tons of kids swimming around though so Mikey and I had our fair share of getting bumped and splashed.  I was glad I had my sunglasses since it prevented most of the water from getting in my eyes at least.  Around four o'clock we decided to go back into town and see what movies were playing at the local theater.  The Amazing Spider-Man was still there and it had a 6:30 showing- there was certainly enough time to have an early dinner beforehand.  Mikey thought that one of the restaurants from the map sounded good so we headed there but we had a hard time finding it.

 I ended up asking an old lady working at a Japanese-sweets shop where the restaurant was and she explained that it was located in the same building as that very shop but it was closed for the day.  She asked us where we were from and so I ended up having a short conversation with her, I was surprised to hear that she knew of Massachusetts since one of her friend's daughter lived there.  Mikey was impressed that I was able to understand much of what the old lady said but I could tell that I definitely did not understand one of her questions since after I answered she gave me kind of a puzzled look (which I'm kind of used to seeing at this point).  [Mikey said he noticed that expression too.]  But as we were about to leave the old lady told us to wait and then went and got us a couple of mochi to take with us (what a nice lady!).  She told us that it would be best to eat them soon (since it was closing time for the shop I think that they were destined to be thrown away in the near future).

We went to a different curry place for dinner (what can I say, curry is great!) and then continued to the movie.  I liked it the second time around as well (I guess it was a three or four-month movie for me after all) though Mikey fell asleep during part of it.  Well, it was nice with the dim lights and AC and the poor boy was still getting over his jet-lag and we had just spent several hours swimming in the sun, so I couldn't really blame him. 

You've probably noticed that Mikey and I spent a lot of the time looking for ways to keep cool...  My hair is a bit long at the moment so I ended up just keeping it in a tight braid for the beginning part of the trip to keep it out of my way and to prevent it from sticking to my face.  Many people in Japan carry around small... sweat towels I guess you'd call them... so they can easily pat their faces and necks dry.  I carried around a towel for that purpose (and lent one to Mikey who actually seemed to really get into the practice so I ended up giving him a towel to take back).  In Japan there is a special word for that feeling you get in the summer where you feel tired and gross (and maybe even get a fever or feel ill) - natsubate, where natsu means "summer" and bate comes from the verb bateru which means "to be exhausted."  I'm definitely a sufferer of natsubate which is why summer is my least favorite season.  Oftentimes on hot and humid days I feel very worn out and I can barely eat anything without feeling nauseous - definitely natsubate.

The next day (August 7th) we planned to wake up early and go to Kyoto to see monkeys and other cool things.  All I can say is that I really was feeling OK (though hot and tired) before I fell asleep that night...

Monkey-plates and Zombie-attacks

Yes, I probably do overuse hyphens... but they're so useful!

Anyway, I wanted to post sooner but I got caught up doing some important things like:

 1.  Sending in my absentee ballot registration form for the big election (luckily I'll be able to email my actual ballot)

 2.  Finally sending the IRS my tax documents (don't worry I paid my estimate back in April and then just got an extension for the paperwork)

And most importantly:

 3.  Re-reading (well re-re-reading) the two Heroes of Olympus books by Rick Riordan since the third book in the series is due out next week!  I'm super excited about it and I hope that this series doesn't end up as a trilogy since I want to read more about Percy Jackson and company later on.  Actually I realized recently that I like the Percy Jackson series/world even better than Harry Potter since Rick Riordan's writing style is just so funny.

In other news I've been in Japan for almost a year now (wow!).  I also got plane tickets to go back home in December to spend time with my family (more specifically my cat).  The high temperature and humidity suddenly broke last week so the weather has been quite lovely since then (though a bit rainy at times).  I took a screenshot of the temperature drop from AccuWeather (after setting it to Fahrenheit) so that I would have evidence of this.

Notice that the recorded low temperature from September 20th is equal to the predicted high temperature for the 21st.

I don't want to write too much else today so I've decided to just tell a few amusing stories from school for now.  I'll get back to the big trip (with Mikey) for my next post. 

First a quick one that happened at Shiroharu Elementary school on Monday.  One of the 6th grade classes was about to start and the kids were still chatting as I came in the room.  Suddenly a boy in the back said, "Come here" (in English) in a pretty loud voice as he was talking to his friend and the homeroom teacher (all elementary English classes are required to have the homeroom teacher present) overheard him.  This particular teacher has a good sense of humor so he said, "'Come here'? OK." and went over to the student.  The boy was confused since he didn't know the meaning of the words (he probably just heard it on TV or in a video game).  So the teacher told the class the meaning in Japanese (koko ni koi) and all the kids in the class thought it was very funny.  During the lesson when I called students to the board I made sure to say, "Come here," and so by the end of class everyone knew the phrase.  Then yesterday I had to stop by the local convenience store and as I got out of the car I heard some voices calling, "Come here!"  I looked over to see some of the same 6th graders riding by on their bikes (and apparently calling out their new favorite English phrase). 

Last week at Hashi Middle School the 3rd years had a dialog section in their textbook in which one of the book's characters was over her friend's house for dinner.  The dialog was a conversation between the character and her friend's father and contained phrases like, "What would you like to drink?" and "It's delicious."  So I asked Shingo-sensei if I could also give the students some tips on table manners in the US.  He thought it was a good idea but I only had a few minutes before class to prepare.  I wanted to bring props so that I could show the students what I was describing (how to hold the utensils, where to put the napkin, etc.).  I was able to find a plastic fork which was kind of amazing but there were no butter-knives so I grabbed a pair of chopsticks that were still in their white paper wrapper (I figured I could tell the students to imagine that it was a knife and at least it was the right shape).  I took a tissue with me to be the "napkin" and after failing to find any plate-like object I decided to just tell the students to pretend that my textbook was a plate.

The mini-presentation went well.  I told the students that while using a knife to cut they should hold it in their dominant hand and use their fork to hold down the food.  Since they didn't know what I meant by "dominant hand," I told them that I was a righty (and pretended to write and cut with my right hand) then I called on a boy in the front row who's a lefty and had him hold the 'knife' with his left hand - the kids caught on after that.  The students were surprised to learn that after cutting they would have to switch the fork to the dominant hand to eat.  I also told the kids to keep their elbows down while cutting their food or else they would "look like a bird" (tori mitai desu).  Finally I wanted to tell them to keep their plates and bowls on the table instead of lifting them up while eating (which is the norm in Japan).  Unfortunately the words for "plate" and "monkey" are similar in Japanese (sara vs. saru) so when I was explaining that they should pretend that the textbook was a plate I definitely said "monkey" the first time.  The kids thought that was pretty amusing...

To end the post, a cute story that Anne told me from one of her elementary schools.  She was eating lunch with some of the younger students (third graders I think) and was sitting next to a very talkative little boy who was asking her all sorts of questions about America.  After a few minutes of asking about various topics he turned to her with a serious expression and asked, "Do they have zombies in America?"  Anne was thinking of leading him on but one of the teachers overheard the question and said something along the lines of, "What kind of question is that, of course they don't have zombies!" haha.

On a related topic, the good news for Japan is that during the Zombie Apocalypse we will be relatively zombie-free as 99.85% of the population opts for cremation ; )

Himeji, Hiroshima, and Carp (big trip part 1)

Extra-long post today... hope you enjoy it!

So Mikey ended up arriving about 17 hours later than I had expected at the Kurikoma-kogen shinkansen station instead of Sendai airport.  I wished that we could have spent that time together too but at least I was spared an extra hour of driving... I guess.  We met up around noon on August 3rd and Mikey claimed to not be too hungry so we decided to drive to my place and eat lunch at one of the little restaurants in Minamisanriku.  Mikey was impressed by my driving skills (and my new license) and I tried to point out interesting sites to him along the way.  The rice paddies were an amazing shade of light-green and the sun was bright (it was very humid though so I was forced to keep the windows closed and the AC on).

When we arrived in Minamisanriku I showed Mikey what progress has been made (though nowadays most areas contain leftover building foundations half covered with summer weeds and sea grass).  Some new non-temporary buildings are in the process of being built but there is still no grocery store in town.  The hospital, which had been heavily damaged and was not in use after the tsunami, was also torn down recently leaving an open space a bit closer to the coast.  After the quick tour I brought Mikey to the apartment and showed him around there too.  I had thoroughly cleaned the kitchen area and my bedroom so I was pretty proud of myself (though my brother probably knew that it's not usually that neat).  Since I wanted Mikey to stretch his legs after the long flight we decided to walk to one of the local restaurants down the mountain.

 Along the way we saw summer flowers like hydrangea (some of which were an amazing shade of purple-blue while others were practically white), sunflowers, and white lilies that I didn't know the name of so I took a picture, apparently they are Yamayuri ("mountain lilies" - makes sense).

I convinced Mikey to have a big bowl of fresh miso ramen, which maybe wasn't the best idea since it's served hot and he was very sweaty by the time he finished it...  I also taught him one of the most important Japanese words that I know, "nanika."  I used it at the restaurant while ordering when I didn't know how to say some kanji in the dish's name.  It was a type of miso ramen but since I couldn't read the first kanji I told the waitress that Mikey would have a nanika miso ramen while pointing to it on the menu.  Nanika (or nantoka) just means "something."  Luckily the waitress understood!  After lunch we went back up to my place and relaxed in the AC for awhile.  We also played one of our favorite video games, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  After a few rounds though Mikey was starting to look very tired due to jet lag.  He ended up taking a nap but woke up after about an hour and a half to have some pasta for dinner.  During that time I tried to organize what I wanted to pack but I ended up doing most of the packing for our trip on the morning of the 4th anyway.  Some of the most useful items I packed were my printed maps and information about the areas that we would be visiting and my compass.  Oftentimes my Google Maps app on my US iPhone runs very slowly so having the non-virtual tools was handy.  I also packed a pair of happi (summer festival clothes) just in case.

Anyway, on the 4th at around noon we headed back to the train station and traveled from Kurikoma-kogen station in Miyagi to Himeji station in Hyogo (a 1060 km ~660 mile journey that lasted about 6.5 hours).  On the way we slept, ate leftover pasta for lunch, and Mikey played an old GameBoy game that he bought with him - Pokemon Blue - classic!

We finally arrived in Himeji (known for its castle which is unfortunately undergoing external renovation at the moment) around 8 PM that evening and got off the train to find that there was a festival going on near the castle!  The festival was fittingly called the Oshiro matsuri (castle festival) and involved large groups of dancers dressed in yukata, some with fans or other props.  There were also large drums being played, intricate paper lanterns, and booths selling festival food.  Mikey and I thought it would be a good chance to wear our happi but we decided to check-in and drop our luggage off at the guesthouse first.  In the end we went with just our regular clothes since the festival only went until 10 PM and we wanted to catch the end of it.  Mikey got a candy apple and I got some little doughnut-like treats that were glazed in honey.

The guesthouse we stayed at was very traditional- its guests slept on futons on the floor, the building was old and built mostly of wood, there were tons of paper-covered doors, and there was no AC.  It was a hot and humid night which made it hard to get comfortable but I was tired from traveling so I was able to bear with it.

On the 5th we took the shinkansen down to Hiroshima.  Actually the reason we stayed in Himeji in the first place was that there weren't any hostels with vacancies in Hiroshima due to the August 6th Peace Ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park.  We arrived around 11 AM and took the tram to the Genbaku Dome (A-bomb dome) area.

The Genbaku Dome, which was almost directly at the atomic bomb blast hypocenter.

Next we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (the long rectangular building in the background) and spent a couple of hours learning about Hiroshima before and after the bomb.  In this photo one can also see the white tents set up for the 2012 Peace Ceremony and the Peace Flame (center) which will burn until there are no nuclear weapons in the world.

The museum was very informative and we could tell that an effort had been made to tell the story from all sides.  For example, the museum had an area explaining that about 20,000 of the victims killed were Koreans who were being used as forced laborers.  While there I was approached by a Japanese high school student who asked if she could interview me (in English luckily).  She asked me whether I had learned about Hiroshima in school so I told her that I officially learned about it in 6th grade (when my class had read the story of Sadako Sasaki).  She also asked me what my idea of peace was and I told her something along the lines of 'people being able to do what they want without fear of being injured or killed.'

I read that many of the victims of the bomb were middle school and high school students who were helping to build outdoor firewalls in case of fire bombing.  A large section of the museum showed items recovered from students after the blast such as burned school uniforms, metal lunch boxes filled with ashes from burned food, and a couple of watches stopped at 8:15.  Stone steps originally from outside of a bank had been reconstructed inside the museum and a plaque next to it pointed out a dark gray shadow where someone had been sitting before dying in the flames after the bomb.  There were also pictures of the city taken after the destruction when there were virtually no standing buildings and I couldn't help but notice the similarities between Hiroshima then and Minamisanriku now...

Some of Mikey's favorite parts of the museum were the walls covered with Letters of Protest.  These letters are sent from the mayor of Hiroshima to the leader of any country found to have conducted a nuclear test urging them to stop nuclear weapon development and testing.  When I visited the museum there were 599 copies of the letters in total with the most recent two (from January 2012) addressed to President Obama.

After the museum we headed over to Mazda Stadium to see a baseball game between the Hiroshima Carp and Osaka Hanshin Tigers.  Seriously though, in real life which would win?

Mikey and I decided to root for the Carp (mostly because of their funny name).  By the way, is it just me or does the 'C' on the baseball cap look suspiciously like the one from the Cincinnati Reds?

I had obtained some pretty good seats, and they were very cheap compared to any Red Sox game I've gone to, only 2,000 yen apiece (about $25)!

Here's the view from our seats.  It was a nice outdoor stadium and a pleasant evening, though it did drizzle a bit at first.

In honor of the Peace Ceremony, all of the baseball fans were given green or red paper upon entering the stadium.  In between innings they played John Lennon's "Imagine" and told us to practice waving the paper back and forth.  I believe it was before the 6th inning that they played a longer segment of the song and it was pretty moving to see everyone participating.

A clip of everyone waving their paper in time with the song.

I had heard that Japanese baseball games had a different feeling from US ones and it was definitely true.  It was very... loud during the game since one group of fans or the other was always chanting and cheering on their team while they were batting.  As for the game-play, my brother said that there was a lot more bunting than he was used to seeing.

 

Before the Carp came up to bat in the 7th inning, the fans sang their... theme song I guess you'd call it, and released balloons into the air.  It was really cool!

The Carp ended up winning the game, so it was a very fun night overall.

Next time, more about Himeji and possibly even Kyoto!

Getting a Japanese Driver's License - part 3 of 3!

Before I tell you all about my trip with Mikey I thought I should finish my saga about obtaining a Japanese driver's license.  Actually the two stories are kind of connected since, as I mentioned previously, I planned to take my second attempt at a license right before picking my brother up from Sendai Airport.  I printed out directions to go from my place to the Sendai Driving Center (which has parking spaces) to the airport and had even selected a fast food restaurant at which to eat once I had collected my notoriously hungry brother from the airport.

Of course, things didn't go as planned.  I woke up on August 2nd to find an email from my father saying that Mikey's second flight from Atlanta to Narita Airport in Tokyo had been delayed by four hours, so he wouldn't be able to catch the flight from Narita to Sendai.  At the time we thought that Mikey would be able to catch the flight to Sendai the following morning.  As it turned out that flight was already full so the airlines had him spend the night in Tokyo and take the shinkansen up to Sendai the following morning with the promise to reimburse him.

Due to the plane difficulties, I decided to take the bus to Sendai since I wouldn't be picking up my brother from the airport that day after all.  I arrived at the Driving Center with little difficulty since it was my third time there.  I had to retake the eye test but didn't have to retake the multiple choice quiz.  I paid the exact same fees as before.  I was informed that the practical test would follow
 the same route as before too.  I wonder if the test is always the same for foreigners or if I happened to get the same one since I came on a Thursday both times.  Anyway, I was still pretty nervous before the test but luckily I got the chance to observe someone else drive before me (a guy from Brazil).  He... didn't do so well.  Even when he first started the course he tried to turn on his blinker but turned on the windshield wipers by mistake (which is a common mistake since the blinkers are on the right-hand side in Japan).  So, the guy ahead of me didn't pass but I had a chance to calm down a bit before my turn and so I was feeling pretty good.

So, when my turn came I made extra-sure to remember all of my mistakes from before and to avoid them.  During "the crank" I made a wide turn into it so that I could avoid the dips on the side of the road.  When stopping at the stop sign I probably sat there for a good five seconds before turning.  I made sure to check my mirrors constantly.  One thing I noticed was that I had misremembered the part of the course where I was to turn right at the traffic light (where I had entered the wrong lane during my first test).  I thought that the lane-dividing lines there were all white but in fact the line separating the right-turning lane from the left/straight lane was yellow.  And the line separating the two directions of traffic was white...  No wonder I got into the wrong lane before!  Anyway, at the end of the test the instructor told me that I probably should have stayed a little closer to the left side of the road but other than that I had done well.  Then I got the blue paper of acceptance, since I passed! 

After that all was well.  I took the test around 2:30 and after I passed I went up to pay the license fee.

- the total for the day was ¥7160 (as before) + ¥2050 (license fee) = ¥9210 (about $115)

One kinda nice/kinda annoying thing about getting a Japanese license is that they give the real license to you on the day you pass.  In the US they give you a temporary paper license to take with you and they send you the real one when it's ready (I believe it took about a week for me).  While it's certainly nice to have the real thing right away it takes time to prepare the license and take your picture and process everything so I ended up waiting a couple of hours before I had my physical license in hand.  During that time I waited with the other foreigners who had passed (there were three of us all together, we must have broken some kind of record!).  The other two ladies who had passed were from Brazil (one was the wife of the man who had done the practical test before me).  The other girl was about my age and she told me that it was her ninth time taking the driving test.  She said the first seven times she had tried to take the manual transmission test.  She was pleased that she had passed the automatic transmission test on only her second try.  I was duly impressed (and slightly horrified at the amount of time and money she must have wasted during her endeavor).  

At 4:15 we all had our photos taken and within the next fifteen minutes we had our licenses in hand.  Since my US license proved that I had been driving in America for over a year I didn't have to take the green and yellow "new driver" bumper sticker, for which I was grateful.

Next time I'll tell you about my brother's arrival, Himeji, and possibly even Hiroshima.
Look forward to it!

Just so I post one more thing in August...

OK, so my brother came and we had a very good time traveling around and whatnot.  I didn't have much of a chance to post while he was around since we were busy and I also kind of wanted a break from posting.

But here's a quick summary and I promise to write more about the interesting parts later:

We went to four Nippon Professional Baseball games, saw three superhero movies, swam in two water parks, and we fed wild monkeys (don't worry, it was monkey-food!).

What could have been better?

Anyway, apparently there is a tsunami warning at the moment (not a major one) due to the big earthquake near the Philippines.  I'm not worried since we've had plenty of warning and I live on top of a steep hill.  I was actually more worried yesterday morning at around 4 o'clock when an earthquake woke me up suddenly (usually you can hear them coming but since it struck suddenly I knew that the epicenter had to be close).  That earthquake was a 4 on the Shindo Japanese scale according to the Japan Meteorological Agency and a 5.7 on the Richter scale.  Nothing in my room fell down or anything though, it wasn't that big.

That's all for now.  I'll write more soon!

Getting a Japanese Driver's License - part 2 of (?)

Left at 8:45 and drove to Tome. Caught the 9:30 bus to Sendai. Dozed during the 1.5 hour ride. Arrived at Sendai station around 11. Got a quick snack then got the 15 min. subway to Izumi-chuo station. Randomly saw a teacher from my school, what are the chances? Around 11:30 got the number 5-2 bus to the Driving Center. Arrived with plenty of time to spare as the registration process goes from 1:00 to 1:30 so I sat in the foreigner waiting-area along with two guys.

I reviewed what Anne had told me about her test while eating another snack. To pass the time I looked at my JET diary (day planner) that also has random useful information like "How to read a nutrition label in Japan," "How to write an address on an envelope," and "Meanings of the most common Japanese road signs." Of course that last one turned out to be useful for the multiple-choice quiz. Between 1 o'clock and 1:30 I successfully handed in my proof of residence paper (which is a new requirement as of this month since they changed the foreigner registration system), I also passed my eye test and the multiple-choice quiz in that time period. The two other guys didn't pass (but as neither Japanese nor English were their native languages I guess it wasn't that surprising)- the test is offered only in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English I believe. One other foreigner showed up after that and he managed to pass (he had very good English). After taking the quiz I was given a map of the day's course and a booklet that contained tips about the practical (all in Japanese so it was mostly useless to me except for some sections that had pictures).

Here's a slightly skewed photo of the course map they gave me. The Driving center (starting point) is on the right. In the center of the course is a working traffic light. On the right-hand side in the middle of the page you can also see "the crank"- a series of 90 degree turns on a narrow road with small indents along the edges so you can tell very easily when you go off the road. Below the crank is the S-curve, which is pretty self-explanatory I guess (it also has the indented edges).

After waiting around with no indication of when the test would take place, around 3 PM I was suddenly called up along with the other guy who had passed the written quiz. That man was taking the standard-transmission test but since we were the only foreigners there and the cars were going to do the same course we both got into the manual car to observe one of the testers drive the course. I was planning to pay attention to when the instructor put on his blinkers before each turn but he had his hazard lights on so that was no help. He also went straight through the red-light in the center of the course even though it hadn't turned green yet, which seemed odd to me...

Once the tester finished showing us the course he told me to wait for the automatic-transmission car to come. It arrived almost immediately and then it was my turn to brave the course... sigh. I wish that more foreigners had been there that day since I would have requested to go a bit later so that I could observe them driving the course. If multiple people are there then you also have the chance to sit in the back seat while the person ahead of you in line goes (but of course, speaking during the test is prohibited). Before starting the test I asked if I could wear my sunglasses since it was a bit bright out but the tester told me that I couldn't since he needed to be able to see where I was looking... jerk. Also, before getting into the car you're expected to check the tires and all around and under the car (just in case any little kids or animals have scrambled under there in the last five seconds).

The first minute of the test was fine. I successfully got up to 50 km/hr (a whopping 31 mph) when instructed during the first straightaway and I made sure to stay closer-than-seemed-appropriate to the left curb. The car was large compared to the k-car I'm used to driving but it wasn't too bad. I made the first right turn and then a left at the traffic-light before turning into the crank. Almost immediately my back left tire went over the indent since my turn wasn't wide enough. Technically you're allowed to fall into the indent up to three times as long as you back up out of it and then continue but I wasn't quite sure what to do since my tire had gone into (and out of) the indent already. I figured that I had already failed since backing up would mean falling into the indent again. So, I just kept going and successfully managed to stay out of the indent after that (even though I knew it didn't matter at that point since I had already failed). Next I went left and through the intersection headed towards the S-curve. Unfortunately I didn't come to a complete... stop... at a stop-sign. That was just careless of me since even in Japan you're still supposed to wait three seconds... during the driving test. So the tester pointed out my mistake and then I managed to get through the S-curve. When making my final approach to the traffic-light intersection I was definitely feeling depressed since I knew that I had failed. I was supposed to turn right but I didn't get into the right-hand turn lane like I was supposed to since I completely didn't notice it. This may seem strange to you since in the US turning lanes are usually very clearly indicated with arrows and lines (white lines indicate the edge of the road and differentiate between turning lanes while yellow lines show you where the opposing lane begins). But in Japan all the lines are white so at a quick glance it's sometimes hard for me to tell whether a particular lane is on my side or in the opposing lane (especially if a turning lane is on a straightaway or if I'm out of it since I know that I just failed a test).

Anyway, the tester told me that I hadn't passed after giving me another recap of all of the parts I had messed up. He then gave me the pink paper of death (since I had failed) which said something like "go back to staff room." ...

Final recap of my wasted day:

two-way bus ticket from Tome: ¥2300
subway to Izumi-chuo: ¥390
bus from subway to Driving center: ¥170
bus back to Sendai station: ¥550

test "handling fee" (whatever that is): ¥2200
practical test fee: ¥1550

total: ¥7160 (approximately $90)

Getting this whole ordeal out of the way: priceless... I bet you saw that coming, haha.

I signed up to take the test again on Thursday since I'll be in Sendai anyway... picking up my brother from the airport! Next time I hope to tell you more about my planned trip with my brother (whom I will call Mike since I like that name). I can tell you that it will be truly epic since we will stay at five different hostels and travel at least 2,740km (~1,700 miles).