Today is really really my last day of work for the summer. Last Thursday was supposed to be my last day, but they want me to come in for about 30 minutes today so I can make some voice recordings for their speech contest speeches. Really classically me, I thought that coming in today would be no big deal. Sure, its Monday and I'm supposed to be on break, but whats 30 minutes? Its not till the afternoon, so I can sleep in, do some blogging, eat breakfast, and then do a little bit of work. On top of that, my company will pay me for gas, which they pay handsomely for, and so I can get a little extra gas money before my month of no company gas money. Of course, not till after I agreed to this did I realize that today is Alix's birthday, so I can't go celebrate with her today. We had made plans to maybe go to a pool/water park in Kimitsu, but since I have to work right in the middle of the day, that ends up being kind of infeasible. This is what happens when I try to be clever, why do I bother. Anyway, not really a big deal, Winston and Alix are heading out to Tokyo for the day instead, and I'm going to meet up with them for dinner as they head back.
Also, Alix is here! For those of you who don't know, she's a friend of ours from college, and is going to stay with us for about two weeks. She and Winston are heading out to Kyoto on Tuesday for about a week. While I could have the appato to myself for a week, that just feels lonely, so Merdith (Ms. America) and I are going to stay at a friends house on the East coast of Chiba, and spend a few days exploring the coast and finding beaches on the Pacific side of Chiba. I am convinced that Tokyo Bay is a useless place to look for beaches. I have tried, and been severely unimpressed. So, to the other coast! Kujukuri is on the East side, and there are supposedly beaches to the south of Kujukuri that are the real surfer beaches, although I have a suspicion that those are the beaches where dudes pretend to surf, and actually just pick up chicks. Kind of touristy. We shall see!!
And, here's some backlogged stories:
These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have Internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:
May, 13 suiyobi (Wednesday)
Dear diary, breakthrough! First, background: on the first day of classes at Sunami, I went around and introduced myself to all the teachers and as part of the introduction, I asked them what club they oversaw. (2nd degree background: the kids all belong to some after school "club," usually a sports club. Its like having a mandatory hobby, and one or two teachers are responsible for each club.) Well, when I got to the teacher in charge of the table tennis (ping pong, but no one calls it that here) I excited asked her if I could come to table tennis practice some time, and told her that I liked table tennis. What followed was an awkward 5 minutes of Japanese hemming and hawing, before it finally dawned on me that something was wrong with this request. It finally came out that well, you see...ah...table tennis is...an, ah...girls-only club, and...ah, well...I finished the sentence - I probably shouldn't go to table tennis then. This is how saying "no" works in Japan.
So, flash forward 6 weeks later, and at lunch today, the first years (ichinenseis) I was eating with were excitedly trying to figure out how to ask me to come to table tennis in English. They finally put it together, and proudly - with much bouncing and giggling - asked if I would come to table tennis club after school today. I replied with a, "hell yeah!" Well, ok, maybe just an "ok!" but that's how I felt on the inside. And now, I get to play ping pong for work: I have a sweet job. I'm also going to assume that this means Ping Pong Sensei really likes me, which also rocks hard. And, since the English teachers are still gone, I had two classes with Kyoto Sensei (vice president), (who is an English teacher) and they both went really well, so now he thinks I'm awesome, too! This has been a good week so far, and I did it all without the help of the English teachers. They got back from yesterday, and so they come back to work tomorrow.
2 things about Japanese kids: one is slightly inappropriate, and the other is about the alphabet. First the alphabet one: Japanese kids have a bunch of trouble writing the letters "r","n", and "h". They always write the r's like n's, and the n's like h'es. I think I know why, too: in Japanese, the sound "n" is the only consonant sound that they have as a stand alone sound (Everything else is a consonant-vowel pair: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, ha, hi, hu, he, ho, etc) and in the hiragana alphabet, the letter for "n" looks a lot like an English "h". So, the common mistake is to write their English "n"s with a long stem, ergo, "h". Ad they tend to add a really long arm to their r's (which I can't really explain) and they look like "n"s to me.
So, let me start this second story by saying that Japanese boys are the most handsy group of males ever. Honestly, Winston and I have a growing collection of stories that start with, "so my boy's did the gayest thing ever today..." This time, I was with some boys, and we started talking about moon walking, proceeded to M.J., (rip) and ended with two boys on the floor, one on his back and the other enthusiastically rubbing the first boy's crotch, shouting "Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson!" and both boys laughing hysterically. Michael Jackson indeed.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:
May 12, kayobi (Tuesday)
I'm looking forward to writing in my journal now. Its a nice way to break the tedium of the day, and I feel like its a small refuge from the Japanese language. Most of the time I spend at school I spend studying the language, and the rest of the time I am immersed in it: trying to understand teachers, trying it understand students, trying to read the daily schedule. Not only is the whole ordeal (and by ordeal I mean daily life/my job, lol) tiring, sometimes it makes my brain hurt. It also can be very frustrating when I realize that there is such a mountain to climb. I'll get excited about learning 10 or 20 words in a day (today it was the colors and the frist 10 kanji characters that 1st graders learn) only to be bombarded by the dozens - hundreds, thousands! - of words I haven't even begun to learn, spoken at a speed I can't even comprehend. I still need to learn to say "a bit more slowly please." (on an odd note, I'm pretty sure I can ask someone to speak more quickly: hayaku hanashite kudasai)
But in my journal I get to write unadulterated, unfettered English. Not Engrish, not sentence fragments, no repetition needed, no self-censorship for vocab and structure. (Ok, but I still can use sentence fragments if I want) I can use whatever vocabulary I want without having to worry about simple synonyms and syntax.
Speaking of real English things - or as one of my first years, ichinensei, says "America:..." (when she means "in English") - I found the gaijin ultimate team in Tokyo, and they look pretty legit. Their team name is Iku, which is a Japanese verb that means "to go." In Japanese slang, iku also means "to cum." Kind of crude, but very ultimate frisbee. Also, I'm pretty sure that they are a good team, because, well, they have their own website. Not only that, but on their website, they say that they have been placing in the top 4-5 spots at tourneys with over twenty teams: yes please! They even have a sister (read: B) team named Kuru, which means "to come" in Japanese. Like I said, very ultimate frisbee. I think they pass initial inspection,and I'm now super excited about playing with them. They have pick-ups on Sundays in a part of Tokyo that is about 2.5 hours and 1500 yen away by train. More money but only 1.5 hours away by car. (Because by car, you have to cross this really epic bridge/tunnel that costs about 2000 yen each way) I've decided that if I can be thrifty this week, I will go to check it out, maybe even buy cleats for the occasion.
Even more exciting, mixed nationals is on the 30th of this month. My hope and dream is that if I play my cards right, I can find my way on to one of these teams, or really any team, and play at the tourney. That would be beyond bomb. So, here comes a week of curry rice, tonkatsu, water, and gin (meh, its the only alcohol I have in the fridge, and I already bought it) with dreams of frisbee for desert.
May 12, kayobi (Tuesday)
I'm looking forward to writing in my journal now. Its a nice way to break the tedium of the day, and I feel like its a small refuge from the Japanese language. Most of the time I spend at school I spend studying the language, and the rest of the time I am immersed in it: trying to understand teachers, trying it understand students, trying to read the daily schedule. Not only is the whole ordeal (and by ordeal I mean daily life/my job, lol) tiring, sometimes it makes my brain hurt. It also can be very frustrating when I realize that there is such a mountain to climb. I'll get excited about learning 10 or 20 words in a day (today it was the colors and the frist 10 kanji characters that 1st graders learn) only to be bombarded by the dozens - hundreds, thousands! - of words I haven't even begun to learn, spoken at a speed I can't even comprehend. I still need to learn to say "a bit more slowly please." (on an odd note, I'm pretty sure I can ask someone to speak more quickly: hayaku hanashite kudasai)
But in my journal I get to write unadulterated, unfettered English. Not Engrish, not sentence fragments, no repetition needed, no self-censorship for vocab and structure. (Ok, but I still can use sentence fragments if I want) I can use whatever vocabulary I want without having to worry about simple synonyms and syntax.
Speaking of real English things - or as one of my first years, ichinensei, says "America:..." (when she means "in English") - I found the gaijin ultimate team in Tokyo, and they look pretty legit. Their team name is Iku, which is a Japanese verb that means "to go." In Japanese slang, iku also means "to cum." Kind of crude, but very ultimate frisbee. Also, I'm pretty sure that they are a good team, because, well, they have their own website. Not only that, but on their website, they say that they have been placing in the top 4-5 spots at tourneys with over twenty teams: yes please! They even have a sister (read: B) team named Kuru, which means "to come" in Japanese. Like I said, very ultimate frisbee. I think they pass initial inspection,and I'm now super excited about playing with them. They have pick-ups on Sundays in a part of Tokyo that is about 2.5 hours and 1500 yen away by train. More money but only 1.5 hours away by car. (Because by car, you have to cross this really epic bridge/tunnel that costs about 2000 yen each way) I've decided that if I can be thrifty this week, I will go to check it out, maybe even buy cleats for the occasion.
Even more exciting, mixed nationals is on the 30th of this month. My hope and dream is that if I play my cards right, I can find my way on to one of these teams, or really any team, and play at the tourney. That would be beyond bomb. So, here comes a week of curry rice, tonkatsu, water, and gin (meh, its the only alcohol I have in the fridge, and I already bought it) with dreams of frisbee for desert.
Monday, July 20, 2009
So, my friend Meredith and I were talking about blogging and things, like you do on a Saturday nights and I said to Meredith, "Mere, you should be a guest blogger on my blog." She said, "Whats a guest blogger?" and I said, "well, you see, um..." and then I realized that I don't really know what a guest blogger would do. She has her own blog, which she updates with less frequency than I do, apparently, so obviously, she should post something up here. Mere is a rad, hip, South Carolinian (or West Virginia, or Ohio if you really want to get technical, the East Coast is a confusing place aparently), affectionately referred to as Mere Kuma, (Mere Bear) Puma Kuma, (It rhymes better...I don't know, it was Winston's idea) and Ms. America from time to time.
So I live in Chiba Prefecture too, along with Alex and Winston, but I live about an hour and twenty train ride north of them in a town called Yotsukaido. Yotsukaido is an old military town and, only being 50 minutes from Tokyo, is basically a suburb of Tokyo. I could rant and rage about how ugly the town is and my frustrations with the fact (since I reguraly crave the chance to hike), but I'll just skip that and just jump to the fact that Chiba Prefecture has gotten significantly better since meeting Alex and Winston. Yeah, yeah. Sure they're both cute, funny, adventurous, American, good cooks, wine drinkers, many other things I find compatible in friends but they also have something I don't...
A CAR!
Alex was blessed with a placement that requires driving and thus was granted a car. I sooooo miss a car more than I can explain. In fact, each time I'm in a car in Japan I'm so simply stunned and blissfully happy that I often lose all articulation and mumble incoherencies. I like nothing more than a good joy ride, head out the window and tail wagging.
Anytime Alex has mentioned the phrase "road trip" I'm there. So was the case yesterday when we ventured to Tateyama, a rumored beach community only about an hour away from Kimitsu.
We spent most of out time in the car (which I was fine with) driving along the coast looking for THE hot spot to go. By the time we started figuring the place out though, the weather went foul and our energy was waning so we started heading home.
I can't say for certain that we found THE hot spot- Tateyama does prove to be beautiful but might not hold the ideal beach front/swimming/surfing that we all had preconceived notions of (however there's still a lot to be discovered).
But I must say, we ended our little road trip on a high note when we pulled off the side of the road and caught the most beautiful sunset over the Pacific I've seen since I've been here.
So I live in Chiba Prefecture too, along with Alex and Winston, but I live about an hour and twenty train ride north of them in a town called Yotsukaido. Yotsukaido is an old military town and, only being 50 minutes from Tokyo, is basically a suburb of Tokyo. I could rant and rage about how ugly the town is and my frustrations with the fact (since I reguraly crave the chance to hike), but I'll just skip that and just jump to the fact that Chiba Prefecture has gotten significantly better since meeting Alex and Winston. Yeah, yeah. Sure they're both cute, funny, adventurous, American, good cooks, wine drinkers, many other things I find compatible in friends but they also have something I don't...
A CAR!
Alex was blessed with a placement that requires driving and thus was granted a car. I sooooo miss a car more than I can explain. In fact, each time I'm in a car in Japan I'm so simply stunned and blissfully happy that I often lose all articulation and mumble incoherencies. I like nothing more than a good joy ride, head out the window and tail wagging.
Anytime Alex has mentioned the phrase "road trip" I'm there. So was the case yesterday when we ventured to Tateyama, a rumored beach community only about an hour away from Kimitsu.
We spent most of out time in the car (which I was fine with) driving along the coast looking for THE hot spot to go. By the time we started figuring the place out though, the weather went foul and our energy was waning so we started heading home.
I can't say for certain that we found THE hot spot- Tateyama does prove to be beautiful but might not hold the ideal beach front/swimming/surfing that we all had preconceived notions of (however there's still a lot to be discovered).
But I must say, we ended our little road trip on a high note when we pulled off the side of the road and caught the most beautiful sunset over the Pacific I've seen since I've been here.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
May 8, May 11
These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:
May 8, 2009 Friday (kinyobi)
I pretty much always know the day and date now. Used to be, I would never know what the date was; “May… uh, something” was a good guess for me. A perk of teaching the kids the days and date, I suppose. Also, everyone knows that most dates end in –th – thirteenth, eleventh, ect. – but not all of them follow this rule. Of course, I knew about the first, second, third, but I never noticed the extra “i” that we put into our multiples of 10: twentieth, pronounced twenty-ith, thirtieth pronounced thirty-ith. Except for 10: tenth. Crazy English. Discoveries like this makes me feel more and more sorry for kids that have to study this silly language. I mentioned my revelation to Winston, but he was unimpressed.
I am endlessly amazed at how difficult the English language is to understand. This is probably a nice state of mind (at least a considerate one) for my current position, because I am always impressed when my students (or really Japanese people in general) can actually speak my crazy language. I’m doubly impressed if they can use it properly. I told this to one of my English teachers, and she laughed at me; I’m relatively sure she took it as a compliment.
Less impressive and more just extremely awkward is the ability for teenage boys to say really outrageous things – in any language. Yesterday, some third year boys and I went through pretty much all the basic vocab for sex. And by the boys and I, I mean they shouted “penis” and “sex” at me while I stood there trying not to laugh too hard. I could barely bring myself to say “good English!” and I decided against trying to correct some of the pronunciation. As they ran out of English, they just moved on to charades and gestures, and that was about the time where I gracefully bowed out. Thank goodness I still have my dignity…
Not having any real authority does make some situations a bit more tricky – sexpletives in the hallways aside – especially, for example teaching class by myself! Oh yeah, that’s right, both Ky. Sensei and K. Sensei (both the English teachers) are going to Kyoto with the third year students for a multi-day field trip, and won’t be back until next Thursday. That gives me three classes to teach solo. I’m pretty sure that this is not supposed to happen – not according the Board of Education or Interac – but I’m not making a fuss, I’m stoked! Ok, a little terrified, but finally, I get to do something! Also, the teachers trust me enough to let me handle the classes, so that’s cool. I’m teaching “he is/ she is” to the first years, and have yet to hear about the plans for the second year classes.
I’m just going to bank on pure enthusiasm to bridge the language barrier; that’s how its seemed to work best so far. However, today was not a high energy day for me; I am pretty tired, and I have no idea why. Winston said he was tired yesterday, and pointed out that our 5 day weekend (while totally righteous) was not that restful, but I felt fine yesterday. *Shrug * not that I have much to complain about, it’s a 2 day work week.
May 11, getsuyobi (Monday)
I think I had a bout of culture shock last weekend. We learned that we might not get internet for two more weeks, and I spent the entire weekend in a funk. I felt particularly frustrated with my inability to understand or make myself understood in this country, and I was grumpy all weekend. I tried (and failed) to get a haircut on Sunday because I couldn’t find the barber, and, being in Japan, I couldn’t ask for help or directions. I tried to ask Winston, but he gave me some really vague answers that I could not decipher. The whole adventure bothered me a lot, which, especially in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. Diagnosis: culture shock.
I did find one barbershop (I think) but as a walked in, I realized that I had absolutely zero vocabulary regarding haircutting inquiries, and so after a bit of gesturing, broken Japanese, and broken English I concluded that the shop I walked into was not open for business, and that I should leave. Sumimasen, sumimasen, gomenasai. Excuse me, excuse me, I’m very sorry.
That evening, we threw the disc around at the park, and that cheered me up quite a bit. I get grumpy when I’m bored/don’t go outside to play. The park was pretty busy, but we managed to avoid hitting any kids, although there were a few close calls. Mostly, we got heckled (good naturedly) by some Japanese dudes who kept shouting “jump!” at us, which was cool. I think we impressed them with our mad gaijin skills. I’m pining for the day I get to actually play frisbee in Japan, or really in anyway at all.
I keep reading about Ultimate in the US. I just learned last week that CAL made it to nationals – nice job Joey D’s! – and everything I read makes me crave the game a little more. The worst part is that I can’t really do much research for pickups in Japan without internet at home!
Anyway, there was talk of games in Chiba among the other ALTs, so hopefully that will start panning out soon. Now, I’m psyching myself up for my class today with the second year students that I’m teaching by myself. We, mostly by myself, A. Sensei will be there to maintain discipline, but she doesn’t really speakie so much of the English, so the teaching is up to me, “yay!” – uh, I’m mean, “eep!” or maybe “bring it on!” More on this to come…
(Fast forward a few hours) So the classes were a success, but who cares, because my vice principal (Kyoto sensei) I. Sensei just showed me his freaking racing car, a 2000cc beast that he races on weekends. He told me about is racing days and how he was some racing champion back in ’98! Totally ridiculous! He was a teacher by day, speed freaking racer by weekend. I would never have guessed. At the same time, this is soo Japanese. Having some really random, really intense hobby (that they do god-knows-when between their like 12 hour work days, and sports practices/meets on weekends) just on the side that they also happen to excel at. Oh Japan.
May 8, 2009 Friday (kinyobi)
I pretty much always know the day and date now. Used to be, I would never know what the date was; “May… uh, something” was a good guess for me. A perk of teaching the kids the days and date, I suppose. Also, everyone knows that most dates end in –th – thirteenth, eleventh, ect. – but not all of them follow this rule. Of course, I knew about the first, second, third, but I never noticed the extra “i” that we put into our multiples of 10: twentieth, pronounced twenty-ith, thirtieth pronounced thirty-ith. Except for 10: tenth. Crazy English. Discoveries like this makes me feel more and more sorry for kids that have to study this silly language. I mentioned my revelation to Winston, but he was unimpressed.
I am endlessly amazed at how difficult the English language is to understand. This is probably a nice state of mind (at least a considerate one) for my current position, because I am always impressed when my students (or really Japanese people in general) can actually speak my crazy language. I’m doubly impressed if they can use it properly. I told this to one of my English teachers, and she laughed at me; I’m relatively sure she took it as a compliment.
Less impressive and more just extremely awkward is the ability for teenage boys to say really outrageous things – in any language. Yesterday, some third year boys and I went through pretty much all the basic vocab for sex. And by the boys and I, I mean they shouted “penis” and “sex” at me while I stood there trying not to laugh too hard. I could barely bring myself to say “good English!” and I decided against trying to correct some of the pronunciation. As they ran out of English, they just moved on to charades and gestures, and that was about the time where I gracefully bowed out. Thank goodness I still have my dignity…
Not having any real authority does make some situations a bit more tricky – sexpletives in the hallways aside – especially, for example teaching class by myself! Oh yeah, that’s right, both Ky. Sensei and K. Sensei (both the English teachers) are going to Kyoto with the third year students for a multi-day field trip, and won’t be back until next Thursday. That gives me three classes to teach solo. I’m pretty sure that this is not supposed to happen – not according the Board of Education or Interac – but I’m not making a fuss, I’m stoked! Ok, a little terrified, but finally, I get to do something! Also, the teachers trust me enough to let me handle the classes, so that’s cool. I’m teaching “he is/ she is” to the first years, and have yet to hear about the plans for the second year classes.
I’m just going to bank on pure enthusiasm to bridge the language barrier; that’s how its seemed to work best so far. However, today was not a high energy day for me; I am pretty tired, and I have no idea why. Winston said he was tired yesterday, and pointed out that our 5 day weekend (while totally righteous) was not that restful, but I felt fine yesterday. *Shrug * not that I have much to complain about, it’s a 2 day work week.
May 11, getsuyobi (Monday)
I think I had a bout of culture shock last weekend. We learned that we might not get internet for two more weeks, and I spent the entire weekend in a funk. I felt particularly frustrated with my inability to understand or make myself understood in this country, and I was grumpy all weekend. I tried (and failed) to get a haircut on Sunday because I couldn’t find the barber, and, being in Japan, I couldn’t ask for help or directions. I tried to ask Winston, but he gave me some really vague answers that I could not decipher. The whole adventure bothered me a lot, which, especially in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. Diagnosis: culture shock.
I did find one barbershop (I think) but as a walked in, I realized that I had absolutely zero vocabulary regarding haircutting inquiries, and so after a bit of gesturing, broken Japanese, and broken English I concluded that the shop I walked into was not open for business, and that I should leave. Sumimasen, sumimasen, gomenasai. Excuse me, excuse me, I’m very sorry.
That evening, we threw the disc around at the park, and that cheered me up quite a bit. I get grumpy when I’m bored/don’t go outside to play. The park was pretty busy, but we managed to avoid hitting any kids, although there were a few close calls. Mostly, we got heckled (good naturedly) by some Japanese dudes who kept shouting “jump!” at us, which was cool. I think we impressed them with our mad gaijin skills. I’m pining for the day I get to actually play frisbee in Japan, or really in anyway at all.
I keep reading about Ultimate in the US. I just learned last week that CAL made it to nationals – nice job Joey D’s! – and everything I read makes me crave the game a little more. The worst part is that I can’t really do much research for pickups in Japan without internet at home!
Anyway, there was talk of games in Chiba among the other ALTs, so hopefully that will start panning out soon. Now, I’m psyching myself up for my class today with the second year students that I’m teaching by myself. We, mostly by myself, A. Sensei will be there to maintain discipline, but she doesn’t really speakie so much of the English, so the teaching is up to me, “yay!” – uh, I’m mean, “eep!” or maybe “bring it on!” More on this to come…
(Fast forward a few hours) So the classes were a success, but who cares, because my vice principal (Kyoto sensei) I. Sensei just showed me his freaking racing car, a 2000cc beast that he races on weekends. He told me about is racing days and how he was some racing champion back in ’98! Totally ridiculous! He was a teacher by day, speed freaking racer by weekend. I would never have guessed. At the same time, this is soo Japanese. Having some really random, really intense hobby (that they do god-knows-when between their like 12 hour work days, and sports practices/meets on weekends) just on the side that they also happen to excel at. Oh Japan.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Golden Week (May 6th)
So, I was going to post more, but apparently I decided to go nuts after Golden Week and write freaking 5 pages in my journal about it. So, this is only one day's worth of posts, but its pretty lengthy. Things are going well in the present Japan. I just switched back schools, so I'm at Sunami again, (I switch back about every month) I just got my first real sized paycheck last week, I get to play the national frisbee team again this weekend...ahh, I guess that's about it for the quick and dirty catch up. I'll write more later, but I just spent way more time than I planned writing down this post, and its 10pm: my bed time!
These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:
May 6th Wednesday (suiyobi)
This is the last day of Golden Week, and Winston and I have both agreed that today is a do-nothing-and-recuperate (note: I spelled that word really wrong in my journal, I think its important everyone knows that; makes it seem more authentic, I think) day. Golden Week is a 5-day weekend that is caused by a string of national holidays , so its a pretty busy time to travel around Japan. Consequently, we decided to keep our travels to local day trips around Chiba prefecture, as opposed to longer trips around Japan.
So, on Sunday, we went down south to explore Futtsu, the city just south of Kimitsu and right on the coast of Tokyo bay. We took the train and got off at a tiny station - like cement platform and no electronic ticket takers, just an old man (they're always old men) behind the booth tiny-but we could see the ocean from the station so we were content to explore. On our way to the beach, we were stopped by a very old, very short Japanese woman (they're always short old women) who just started talking to us. Now, this is not so rare an event, and is usually really helpful, but whatever this woman was saying was in a version of Japanese that made even less sense to me than usual - and that is still saying something! Fortunately Winston caught the word for ocean (uma) and we worked out that this lady was trying to give us directions to the beach, which she made sure she did. And then she kept talking. So we said thank you, we understand, thank you very much, have a good day,and started to walk away. And she began to follow us, still talking. All the confused faces in the world (Winston and I have at least a couple dozen unique looks varying from distressed and confused to happily confused) and all the polite phrases we knew (like 3) were not going to get us disengaged from this woman, so we just backpedaled until she stopped following us. (she was really old) To this day, I still have no idea what she was trying to say to us.
We did find the beach, but before we went to explore it, we spied a group of old people playing something that we first mistook for croquet. (I also misspelled that word) Well, we were not about to miss out spectating (spectating...erm...what spectators do) a croquet match, so we sat down off to the side took advantage of what I like to call gaijin privilege, which I think of as the right to be slightly obtuse, overly curious, and easily excitable. (Lately, we have also begun to think of it as a shield that protects us from criticism when we say stupid/unintelligible/wrong things) Being gaijin, we quickly drew some attention from the people we were watching. As predicted, our personal magnetism (read: white skin) drew one of the croqueters over - an old man - and he jovially explained that the sport was called "gatebaru" (that's Japanese for "gateball") and that gateball was a sport for old people. We watched and cheered a little, tried to decipher the rules, and then went on to explore the beach.
Predictably, once on the beach, Winston got really excited about skimboarding, and we began hunting for good spots to skimboard. The beach we found at Futtsu was not as nice as Kujukuri, but it did have the virtue of being about two hours closer, which we agree was a big plus. Winston talked about how he was going to justify buying his board, which will cost him about 100$, with the ever-preset consideration that we're not getting paid until the end of this month.
We are still living pretty sparsely, making lists and plans for when we do have an actual income. Skimboards lead the list, followed by shorts (I want me some 5ultimate shorts, also its actually hot in Japan, no something I'm used to anymore. I'm excited to wear shorts!) restaurants, trips, accessories, electronics, furniture; all just waiting to be afforded. Not having income contributes to the feeling that this is not yet my home, and I think part of the reason I still feel like I'm traveling - transient. I'm pretty sure I haven't fully realized what moving and living in Japan for a year actually means- for better and worse. I mean, I'm not living out of a suitcase or backpack, but lets be honest, everything I own right now still fits into one. On the other hand, everything I do, and everyday I'm here seems to be another adventure, which is really neat! Lots of revelations, and there's nothing quite like a language barrier to make you appreciate the little things, even when it makes things in general difficult.
Yesterday was an interesting case in point. We headed out to the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, which is about 1.5 hours of train trip away from Kimistu. One of Winston's teachers gave him tickets - although we did have an exciting moment where we wondered if we actually had tickets and not just brochures, because, you know, we couldn't read anything on the paper - and we decided Golden Week was a good time to go see it. The train ride there was uneventful, with us navigating the train transfers with ease. On arrival, we decided to take a bus to the museum after walking around in the rain for 15 minutes. I was wearing sandals and a hoodie, and Winston wasn't really dressed more appropriately for the rain either. We made it to the museum, and yes, we did have tickets, and bonus: they have little mp3 devices with cataloged recordings about the exhibits! Good, because I was preparing myself to walk through the museum just looking at Japanese history and not really understanding it. (its just like samurai for like thousands of years right?) I'm getting pretty used to the not understanding aspect of being in Japan anyways. But no, with our little audio tour guides, we spend the next three hours exploring Japanese history.
Let me just say that there is a lot of it. (and its not really that much samurai) The first gallery (of 5) starts at 2-3 thousand years ago. We made it through 4 galleries before calling it quits - we were tired, and since we couldn't actually read anything, I felt like my ears were overflowing with audio recordings. As the day wore on, the ear piece changed from extremely useful to totally grating and - honestly - useless because my head was simply out of aural storage capacity.
With about 30 minutes left till the museum closing, an older curator (They're all old men!) came up to us to inform us that the museum is closing in 30 minutes and did we know about the special exhibit? No, we didn't, so he hurried us over the final exhibit: Japanese block printing. We got the impression that he wasn't supposed to actually escort us to the exhibit, or really leave his post at all, but we made the mistake of asking how to get to the exhibit, so he had to show us how to get there: its a Japanese thing.
Anyway, the museum was awesome, but the trip back home was not: we missed our bus back and had to walk through the rain to get to the station. That wasn't so bad, but then we spent over 2 hours riding home because we kept getting on the wrong trains. Bad times. Its the price we pay for gaijin privilege. Sure, it takes 1.5 hours to get home by the train, but adding in the hidden gaijin fees makes it about 2.5 hours. Bad times, but what are you going to do?
These are transcribed entries from the journal I am writing in at school. I started the journal for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I didn’t have internet yet so I couldn’t post things online. The other being that I had free time on my hands. These entries are slightly modified, but mostly for grammar. I suppose you’d never know either way. Surprisingly, I had way more to say than I thought. Unsurprisingly, I have been bad (abysmal) at keeping my online entries up to date with my written ones. Someday, the dates will match but for now…These are the voyages of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:
May 6th Wednesday (suiyobi)
This is the last day of Golden Week, and Winston and I have both agreed that today is a do-nothing-and-recuperate (note: I spelled that word really wrong in my journal, I think its important everyone knows that; makes it seem more authentic, I think) day. Golden Week is a 5-day weekend that is caused by a string of national holidays , so its a pretty busy time to travel around Japan. Consequently, we decided to keep our travels to local day trips around Chiba prefecture, as opposed to longer trips around Japan.
So, on Sunday, we went down south to explore Futtsu, the city just south of Kimitsu and right on the coast of Tokyo bay. We took the train and got off at a tiny station - like cement platform and no electronic ticket takers, just an old man (they're always old men) behind the booth tiny-but we could see the ocean from the station so we were content to explore. On our way to the beach, we were stopped by a very old, very short Japanese woman (they're always short old women) who just started talking to us. Now, this is not so rare an event, and is usually really helpful, but whatever this woman was saying was in a version of Japanese that made even less sense to me than usual - and that is still saying something! Fortunately Winston caught the word for ocean (uma) and we worked out that this lady was trying to give us directions to the beach, which she made sure she did. And then she kept talking. So we said thank you, we understand, thank you very much, have a good day,and started to walk away. And she began to follow us, still talking. All the confused faces in the world (Winston and I have at least a couple dozen unique looks varying from distressed and confused to happily confused) and all the polite phrases we knew (like 3) were not going to get us disengaged from this woman, so we just backpedaled until she stopped following us. (she was really old) To this day, I still have no idea what she was trying to say to us.
We did find the beach, but before we went to explore it, we spied a group of old people playing something that we first mistook for croquet. (I also misspelled that word) Well, we were not about to miss out spectating (spectating...erm...what spectators do) a croquet match, so we sat down off to the side took advantage of what I like to call gaijin privilege, which I think of as the right to be slightly obtuse, overly curious, and easily excitable. (Lately, we have also begun to think of it as a shield that protects us from criticism when we say stupid/unintelligible/wrong things) Being gaijin, we quickly drew some attention from the people we were watching. As predicted, our personal magnetism (read: white skin) drew one of the croqueters over - an old man - and he jovially explained that the sport was called "gatebaru" (that's Japanese for "gateball") and that gateball was a sport for old people. We watched and cheered a little, tried to decipher the rules, and then went on to explore the beach.
Predictably, once on the beach, Winston got really excited about skimboarding, and we began hunting for good spots to skimboard. The beach we found at Futtsu was not as nice as Kujukuri, but it did have the virtue of being about two hours closer, which we agree was a big plus. Winston talked about how he was going to justify buying his board, which will cost him about 100$, with the ever-preset consideration that we're not getting paid until the end of this month.
We are still living pretty sparsely, making lists and plans for when we do have an actual income. Skimboards lead the list, followed by shorts (I want me some 5ultimate shorts, also its actually hot in Japan, no something I'm used to anymore. I'm excited to wear shorts!) restaurants, trips, accessories, electronics, furniture; all just waiting to be afforded. Not having income contributes to the feeling that this is not yet my home, and I think part of the reason I still feel like I'm traveling - transient. I'm pretty sure I haven't fully realized what moving and living in Japan for a year actually means- for better and worse. I mean, I'm not living out of a suitcase or backpack, but lets be honest, everything I own right now still fits into one. On the other hand, everything I do, and everyday I'm here seems to be another adventure, which is really neat! Lots of revelations, and there's nothing quite like a language barrier to make you appreciate the little things, even when it makes things in general difficult.
Yesterday was an interesting case in point. We headed out to the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, which is about 1.5 hours of train trip away from Kimistu. One of Winston's teachers gave him tickets - although we did have an exciting moment where we wondered if we actually had tickets and not just brochures, because, you know, we couldn't read anything on the paper - and we decided Golden Week was a good time to go see it. The train ride there was uneventful, with us navigating the train transfers with ease. On arrival, we decided to take a bus to the museum after walking around in the rain for 15 minutes. I was wearing sandals and a hoodie, and Winston wasn't really dressed more appropriately for the rain either. We made it to the museum, and yes, we did have tickets, and bonus: they have little mp3 devices with cataloged recordings about the exhibits! Good, because I was preparing myself to walk through the museum just looking at Japanese history and not really understanding it. (its just like samurai for like thousands of years right?) I'm getting pretty used to the not understanding aspect of being in Japan anyways. But no, with our little audio tour guides, we spend the next three hours exploring Japanese history.
Let me just say that there is a lot of it. (and its not really that much samurai) The first gallery (of 5) starts at 2-3 thousand years ago. We made it through 4 galleries before calling it quits - we were tired, and since we couldn't actually read anything, I felt like my ears were overflowing with audio recordings. As the day wore on, the ear piece changed from extremely useful to totally grating and - honestly - useless because my head was simply out of aural storage capacity.
With about 30 minutes left till the museum closing, an older curator (They're all old men!) came up to us to inform us that the museum is closing in 30 minutes and did we know about the special exhibit? No, we didn't, so he hurried us over the final exhibit: Japanese block printing. We got the impression that he wasn't supposed to actually escort us to the exhibit, or really leave his post at all, but we made the mistake of asking how to get to the exhibit, so he had to show us how to get there: its a Japanese thing.
Anyway, the museum was awesome, but the trip back home was not: we missed our bus back and had to walk through the rain to get to the station. That wasn't so bad, but then we spent over 2 hours riding home because we kept getting on the wrong trains. Bad times. Its the price we pay for gaijin privilege. Sure, it takes 1.5 hours to get home by the train, but adding in the hidden gaijin fees makes it about 2.5 hours. Bad times, but what are you going to do?
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