Week 3

Yes folks, it is time again for another post. Please hold any applause, cheers, jeers and rotten vegetable tossing 'til the end of the update. It won't be long, don't worry...

So, another week in Japan and much more to write about. I feel like I'm kind of getting settled here in my apartment, although it still doesn't really feel like "home". I've been getting a better feel for the area in which I am staying by riding my bike around town every day. An added benefit to my newfound routine is the ample exercise I've been getting. I feel like if Lance Armstrong and I were to trade bikes right now, I'd have a fairly good shot at beating him half a mile down a very steep hill. Impressive huh?

I've also been doing some cooking, which, somewhat surprisingly, has turned out rather well so far. The last two dinners I whipped up were rather spontaneous and not exactly by the books, but were quite scrumptious. Occasionally I'll forget that I'm only cooking for one, and I end up making about 8 servings worth of chicken curry (two nights ago). Aside from the searing heartburn, a meal of curry, orange juice and ritz crackers is a great way to start the day!

I promised a few things on my last post which seemed pertinent and interesting at the time, that now seem like they took place months ago. However, I'll do my best to briefly touch on them in case you'd been eagerly anticipating my take on the matters.

Train suicides: (people jumping in front of trains, not trains throwing themselves off the rails)
Happen alllll the time in Japan. I know, its rather grim, but its quite a serious problem around these parts. Here's my first-hand (fortunately not to close-up) experience dealing with the repercussions of train-jumping.

Last week (two weeks ago now), I was headed from the train station by my hotel to school, where I was to go though my usual routine of absolutely nothing. Oddly, the 8:27 train was about 10 minutes late, meaning one of two things have occurred: high winds had caused the trains to be delayed, or somebody had taken the plunge somewhere up the line. Not being a particularly blustery day, I figured that the latter had, unfortunately, taken place. However, not understanding Japanese, I could not understand what the constant updates were from the PA system, and figured the train would run a few minutes late and I would get to school slightly later than usual. OHHHHH BOY WAS I WRONG...
I'll give you the abbreviated version of what went down.
-Train finally arrives at the station, I board and we proceed to the next station... nothing out of the ordinary
-At the next station, train stops... and waits... and waits... and waits. Finally the conductor comes over the intercom, says something in Japanese and about half of the people on the train get off. I figure, OK, maybe we'll be delayed for 10 to 15 minutes. I'm in no rush to get to school to piddle away 8 hours, I'll just piddle here on this air conditioned train. I piddle, and piddle. No departure.
- About 45 minutes later we're still parked at the station, and people are still just sitting around on the train. I muster up the courage to go around to every person on my train, asking if they speak English. Of course, the only responses I get are a few head shakes and about 15 giggles and blushes. Sooooo, I bust out my Lonely Planet phrasebook and figure out the sentence "Why train here" in Japanese and lay that one on them. More laughter, no answer.
- I make a critical decision. I exit the train in order to find a phone to call my predecessor, who was to meet me at school. I find a payphone, call him up... no answer. At this time, I've left the train station, and would need to buy another ticket to get back on the train that wasn't moving. So I figure, let's try walking
- Not a good idea. In fact, a painfully hot and sweaty idea. I ended up walking from that train station to the next one, approximately 5-6 km away in dress clothes, uncomfortable shoes and in 100% humidity. I was soaked when 10 minutes later I saw the very train I had piddled around on whizzing right past me. That was a real, "awwww shit" moment.
- I stumble into the next station, buy another $3 ticket (which doesn't seem like much, but I'm on a budget here people!) and drag my sweaty ass up the stairs to the platform. What I came to find out later is that this station was the very one where the unfortunate soul took the plunge two hours earlier. I didn't care at that point. I was pissed.
- I drag myself into the teachers' room at school, drenched, stinky and hacked off just in time to leave for lunch. On the bright side, I suppose I got some exercise while I piddled that morning.

Moral of the story: Don't jump in front of a train. It tends to have adverse effects on EVERYONE, not just you (sorry for the cynicism. It's probably insensitive).

Someone mail me a box of Zoloft. I could make a killing in this country! (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Too hard to resist.)

On a lighter note...
Japanese Fireworks
Are AWESOME!!! People love their explosives here, I'm tellin' ya. What's the one thing you'd all kind of expect Japanese fireworks shows to have, but would still be really amazed if they really had them???

EXACTLY!!! Hello Kitty shaped fireworks!!!
Not only do they have Hello Kitty, but also this little cat creature named Doraemon and everybody's favorite Mario bad guys, Goombas!

Basically, the Otsu Fireworks Festival, which I attended last Friday evening, was hands down the best fireworks experience of my 22 year old American life. Sorry fellow Americans, but the Fourth of July ain't got nothin' on Japanese hanabi festivals. I took some sweet pictures and even sweeter videos from the display. I've posted them on my picasa account, which can be reached riiiiiiiight here. Bookmark the link. I will post many more pictures and videos for your viewing pleasure.
Essentially, it was awesome and watching little Japanese kids watching fireworks is probably the cutest most hilarious thing I can imagine. I'd have taken videos of the kids, but I didn't want to look like a big, creepy, white pedophile.

I forgot what else I was going to tell you about... mmmmm... aha! My cell phone!

I now am a proud owner of the second shittiest cell phone in all of Japan! Basically, I went to Softbank (a cell phone company), bought the cheapest plan, and bought the second cheapest phone and I was out. I guess I'm supposed to call it a keitai now. I realized two things shortly after walking out with my phone, I mean keitai:
1) I don't have any idea how to use it
2) Even if i did, I don't have anybody to call

Fortunately, my sixty-five year old male supervisor gave me his cell phone number right afterwards (which i didn't know how to program into the phone) in case I needed a buddy to chat with.
You'll be happy to know that I now have 7 contacts in my phone, only 4 of which are co-workers that felt sorry for me. HA! I sort of have friends!

What else is new???? Hmmmm....

Saturday, after the fireworks festival I met two of my buddies from Tokyo orientation, Adam and Diku, in Osaka to go see the city. I only live about an hour and a half from Osaka, which is totally great considering they both took about 5-7 hours to get there. We had originally planned on going to SummerSonic, a music festival that takes place in Tokyo and Osaka simultaneously. However, at $140 a day, we decided the price tag was a little steep. Instead we walked around Den Den Town, electronics capital of Japan, and took lots of ridiculously touristy pictures. That night, Adam's friend Katherine flew in from Hawaii and we hit a club in Amerikamura. I suggest googling Amerikamura and reading what pops up. I haven't done it yet, but I'm sure it's hilarious.
Anyway, the club was great, we had a blast and went back to our pod hotel for a good night's sleep. The next day, we trucked back to Kyoto where we rented bikes and cruised around the city all afternoon. Again, I've posted pictures on my Picasa, so I'll let them do the talking.

This week, I've been doing some serious bumming around in my apartment. Aside from cooking and watching movies, I've been doing some exploring around Otsu but nothing too spectacularly magical. I have some homesickness setting in and I can feel some of the things I used to really find cool and interesting getting on my nerves a bit, but hey, that happens. I'm trying to stay upbeat about things, despite constantly wishing I had more English-speaking people to have conversations with. I'm sorry, with whom to have conversations... or something. Is that right? I really hope my students don't ask me about who vs whom. I have no fucking clue.

So, thats my news. I assume you've already read this, so make sure to check out my pictures next. You're all fabulous. I love you all, but will love you more if you leave a comment. Even if you just write "word".
Much love
John

PS: I have my first real "lesson" on Tuesday! Our high school is having an open school for graduating middle schoolers to come check out the campus. They're basically using me as a recruiting tool, telling me "just tell them why they should come to school here." I honestly have no idea why they should, since I've only been there two weeks but I made up some crap about how its a great place to grow and learn. I'll let you know how it goes. It could get ugly... stay tuned

Otsu glad I made another post?

HELLLOOOOOO again

Sorry, it has been quite a while since I've updated and so much has happened since then. I'll try to do my best to catch up without writing a novel.

Last time I wrote I was still in Tokyo for our Post-Arrival Orientation. Honestly, that feels like it was three months ago. Since that post, I've moved to my home city, Otsu, met my predecessor, met all the teachers at my school, opened a bank account, registered as a certified gaijin (foreigner), moved into my apartment, gotten a cell phone and done about 10,000 other new things. During my first week in Otsu, I stayed in a business hotel, because my predecessor Zach was still hanging around. Despite not being able to move into my apartment for a week, I am soooooo glad Zach hung around. He helped me adjust to life here so much and honestly, I'd probably be completely lost if he hadn't. Plus, he showed me the greatest three days of gluttony in my entire life. So Zach, if you're reading this, thanks a million man.

Here's a quick summary of stuff. yeah stuff:

Last Wednesday: I arrived in Otsu, where we made the "hell walk" from the train station to the government office. Considering its name, "hell walk" didn't really live up to my expectations. Though it 85 degrees with 149% humidity, I managed not to pass out or croak before arriving for our welcome ceremony. After cooling off in the building, we got into our formal wear and nervously filed into a room to endure a awkward, sweaty exchange of words with our new supervisors. We, of course, had to address them in butchered Japanese, which most of us had copied directly from our JET handbook. You could easily pick out those who hadn't taken a lick of Japanese, since all of our speeches were absoultely identical. Whoever wrote that outline in the handbook should have patented it... he or she would be making some serious royalty bank.

After the ceremony I met my supervisor, Ito-sensei, my vice principal, Umemura-sensei and Zach. I'll give you a more detailed description of these people later, when I'm not so focused on writing two weeks worth of information in one blog post. They're awesome... I'll leave it at that for now. We went to the business hotel, where I would be staying, I changed out of my formal attire and we hit Kyoto for dinner and some drinks. We went to an Asahi brewhouse in downtown(ish) Kyoto. There we ate, drank and got merry and had a grand ol' time then I went back "home" and hit the sack.

My cozy little hotel room

View from my hotel balcony

Thursday: I went to school in the morning with Zach and met a lot of the teachers that I'll be working with this year. They all seem very nice and extremely interested in what Oklahoma is like. I told one teacher about prarie dogs and for the last week she hasn't stopped asking me questions about what she understands to be oversized moles. Will one of you please just ship me one, because I'm getting tired of describing the bastards.

My early-morning-squinty (because of the sun... im not making fun of asians)-first day-of-school-face

After we piddled around for a while, we went out and did a bunch of tiresome errands, like registering with the prefectural office, opening a bank account, blah blah blah... It ended up being a really long day, and I was beat once we started discussing cell phone contracts in Japanese. As if they aren't confusing enough in English. Too tired to do anything at night, I hit the nearby mcdonalds for a delicious "bacon lettuce burger" and crashed. hard.

mmmmmmm... oishiiii (delicious!)

Friday: All the new Shiga JETs spent friday at the government office going through "survival orientation". Essentially, all the veteran JETs from the area told us how to do shit we had already done the day before. I suppose a lot of the information was somewhat useful, but a lot of it could have been skipped, or covered in 1/5 of the time that was taken. I really did enjoy meeting a lot of the older JETs though and asking questions about, well, everything. Ohhh, how young and naive i once was...

Afterwards we all went out to Kyoto (obviously the place to be) to an Engrish pub. It was Engrish to the max! A lot of people made it out, and we all had a ball eating our fish 'n chips and drinking gin and tonics and just having a good ol' Engrish time. We proceeded to hit the nearby karaoke bar, where we all rocked out to some awful renditions of assorted Michael Jackson, Queen and Rod Stewart mega hits. I'm not afraid to admit that I salvaged any intergrity we had at the beginning of the night with my table top Billie Jean closer. Terrible dance moves always make up for any vocal deficiencies.

Kyoto

More Kyoto

Saturday: Woke up with an uneasy stomach, totally not from drinking too much, to bloody monsoon season in Japan. Flash floods, however, cannot deter me, so I slogged my way around Otsu looking for anything picture worthy. I found ppleeeeentyyyy, let me tell ya. This is just one I found particularly hilarious. I apologize for my middle school sense of humor
But, come on... how is that not worth a chuckle?

OK now lets get serious. During a break in the cloud cover I stumbled across Midera Temple which is hands down the most beautiful, peaceful place I have ever been. Words can't really do it justice to I'll have to let my pictures and videos do the describing. (Warning: video contains explicit language... I apologize, but I had just climbed like 500 stairs. At least I dropped the f-bomb in a positive way, right???)

^ Lindsey, I thought of you when I saw this. ^

So serene...

spiritual and soggy.

Well, I had intended to upload about 15 more pictures but it takes FOREVER to upload pictures and videos to this thing. I'm thinking I'll have to start up a photobucket account or something for all of my pictures, because I have tons and tons and tons more. I'll look into it and let you guys know what happens.

I had also intended on catching you up to the present, however, I am getting extremely sleepy and intend on waking up early tomorrow to catch the train to Osaka for a quick one-day trip. I am meeting two of my friends, Adam and Diku-nut, from Tokyo orientation in the other big city tomorrow, crashing in a cheap hostel then coming back on Sunday...

So... coming up in the next blog post:
-Train suicides: Tragedies that make everyone else late for work
- John gets a Japanese cell phone, and realizes he has nobody to call :(
- Japanese fireworks shows... way better than any others (sorry fellow Americans)
and much much more...

I love you guys and miss everyone at home (especially my main man marley and his beautiful roommate lindsey). Keep reading and commenting, and I'll do my best to keep posting.
With love from Japan,
John

PS: I apologize, but I just realized that I posted a bunch of really lame pictures. I have about 100 that are better than these. I shall redeem myself, I promise. Give me another chance

quick update

whats up guys?
just wanted to update you on whats been going on. i havent had internet access for the past five or six days, so sorry for the lack of updates. ive been writing some stuff on my computer that ill post when i move into my apartment. i should post something by thursday of this week. i miss you guys and will tell you all about my first week or so in my new home.
much love
john