Note to self

This is a note to myself and a note to you to remind me to write about the following before I get swamped with school stuff starting Wednesday:

1.)  My first welcome not-a-barbecue party.
2.)  First time going to Kumamoto with the other Amakusa JETs (by car)
3.) First time going to Kumamoto without the other Amakusa JETs... (by car + train)
4.)  Meeting the mayor of Amakusa city and the other Amaksua JETs that I hadn't met before
5.) Going bowling with the people in the branch office where my BOE (board of education) is located.
6.) Going to my first 二次会 at a 'snack bar'  (warning: not anything like snack bar at Sharples)


To me, some of these events feel significant, yet are hard to make sound exciting.  I will/have to find a way to write about them before I start writing new entries about what is happening right now!

Oh, and here are a few photos I took after a rain storm on sunday in the near by park.  Bad idea, as a second rain storm soon followed and I got caught in it while going down a mountain to the neighboring village.  It was probably one of the worst storms I've ever encountered in terms of ferocity of rain and thunder.

I think I saw scuba divers on that beach down there.

This rock is famous. Don't ask me why.

That tiny rock on the right is the famous younger sibling of the other famous rock.

成人式 Coming of Age

Instead of reporting for work at the city office today, Horiguchi-san and I got up early to travel all the way to Ushibuka (牛深, the second largest town on Amakusa) for the town’s annual Coming of Age Ceremony “Seijinshiki” 成人式.  When Japanese youngsters turn 20 (why am I calling them youngsters if they are only 2 years older than me?  Probably because I can’t take them very seriously because most of them sport really outrageous hairstyles.  Come on, guys; if you have to wake up before your female friends to do your hair in the morning, you know there’s a problem...), they return to their hometowns and have a little ceremony where a lot of educational officials, past teachers, and some of the students themselves give speeches, pass on words of encouragement, or reminisce about old times.  My only job was to sit their, look important, and pass out information packets to all of the youngsters who were attending the ceremony. 

While my Japanese, and my attention span, were not good enough for me to follow all of the speeches in the ceremony, I could tell from the general reaction of the audience that I was not missing too much.  Luckily, the ceremony ended with a Haiya dance performance, Amakusa's famous traditional dance to celebrate each year's good fishing season.  (see video clip on facebook)

For the first time in a while, I also got to hang out with other JETs and enjoy, guess what, another fire works festival.  This would be number 3. Though I think I've had my fill of fireworks festivals by now, it was a nice experience to have English speaking people around to enjoy it with, to be surprised by having live entertainment before the show (just a single piano player/singer who performed for 30 minutes straight before the fireworks; not bad) and to be able to go out to a bar afterwards and enjoy some snacks.   The pizza was even pretty good, which is always a surprise in Japan where they don't really understand 'cheese' and 'crust' concepts very well.

Downer almost-ending: since my driver did indulge in alcohol that evening, we had to stay the night at George's apartment in Ushibuka, the ALT stationed there, and wake up early the next morning to drive me back to Takahama.  

Artificial better-ending: next year in April we Amakusa JETs get to be in the haiya dancing festival...:)

Day 2 of Freedom and Obon

Day 2 of my first weekend on my own was a little quieter, but not without adventure.  Today, August 15th, is the day that most of Japan celebrates Obon, the festival commemorating the souls of one’s ancestors (at least to my understanding).  From August 13th, one’s entire extended family gathers together, like a big summer family reunion, to celebrate the return of the spirits of one’s ancestors.  Lots of food is eaten, lots of fireworks are set off, and finally, on August 15th, each family carries a small parade float laden with lanterns from one’s family gravesite to the site of the Obon festival.  In Takahama, this is at the boat docks near the beach.  After a Buddhist priest reads off the names of the recently deceased, some of the lanterns are loaded onto boats and taken around the bay.   In the past, all of the lanterns would be set afloat in little boats and allowed to drift out to sea, but since those lanterns eventually turn into trash, that part of the festival is no longer practiced.  

I didn’t actually know that any of this was happening until I went to the store around lunch time and one of the store clerks who I had met before told me about it.  At the festival, I ran into more people who recognized me, heard of me, or who are related to someone who knows me, etc.  I wasn’t sure if, by attending this more sober natured event, that  I was intruding somehow, but sure enough a random person who I can’t remember exactly knew me sorta stuck by my side and told me what was going on at different parts.  Everyone kept asking if there was something like Obon in America, but the only thing I could come up with that was similar was All Souls’ Day.  

Anyway, before all of this happened, I took a trip by bike to the neighboring village of Ooe, where my first host family, the Horiguchis, reside.  To get there, you have to climb a fairly large hill, go through a tunnel, and then down another hill once you reach the other size.  These road tunnels are fairly new, and before they were built you had to take some fairly twist roads along the shore to get from town to town.  The mountains that separate the villages from each other caused such isolation that there is a dialect for each village in my town.  

Here are some pictures of the trip.  Ooe, is famous for its Catholic church, built after the ban on Christianity was lifted.   Once I can drive, I plan on going to the Sunday services.  Trying to get there by bike would be a little hard, since even with my battery-powered bike (used to help you on the hills) the process of climbing the hill is really tiring and leaves you dripping in sweat.

People setting off fireworks near family graves:  http://hp.amakusa-web.jp/a0591/Oshirase/Pub/Shosai.aspx?AUNo=5049&Pg=1&St=0&OsNo=67

The photo gallery at the bottom of this page has some more photos of Obon:http://hp.amakusa-web.jp/a0591/MyHp/Pub/Default.aspx

My First 24 Hours on my own O_o

A lot of JETs talk about how tough it is when you first move into your apartment and realize you’re all alone.  Some, while still unpacking their suitcases, burst into tears and collapse on the floor.  Others manage to make it to the supermarket after unpacking, but then proceed to fall apart into a sobbing mess in the condiment section when they realize there is no peanut butter or jelly.  Whether because of  culture shock or the idea of being on your own in a foreign country, miles and miles from your friends, a lot of people have a ‘breakdown’ moment.  

Me?  Well, as much as I think that I’m the type who tends to cry at the drop of a hat, I managed to survive my first 24 hours of independent living in Japan (i.e. no host family or orientation at a hotel) pretty well.  Trying to sleep on the tatami mat floor, I’ll admit, was tougher than I thought since a.) my air conditioning drips (really bad since water can cause horrible mold in tatami), b.) my predecessor doesn’t have a lot of sheets to go along with the many futons I inherited, c.) the tatami room kinda smells, and d.) I was still expecting a giant mugade 百足 (hundred legs a.k.a centipede) to come crawling across the floor and sting me at any moment.

My first day out on the town was definitely a lot more exciting than I expected.  I had planned to do some chores, put on some athletic clothes, and then bike around town a little to get the gist of where things were, when things were open, and to go see the beach and take some pictures.  I succeeded in doing all of those things, but when I was returning along the beach path to grab some yakisoba for lunch (think lo mein), two middle-aged Japanese guys who saw me before invited me to sit down and have a beer.  Before I could say “Uh....,” I was plopped down on the bench next to one of the guys and a beer was opened and placed before me.  Even after a few polite refusals, they had me not only drinking their beer but also eating yakisoba on their tab.  Oosada and Hama-chan (a joke way to address a middle-aged guy as ‘-chan’ is a suffix used only for little kids or cute little ol’ grandpas and grandmas) talked with me about the typical things, like where I was from, where they were from, what they did, what I was doing here, etc.  According to Hama-chan, we were now, from this point, tomodachi 友達 (friends).   

Next thing I know, Hama-chan’s relatives, what looked like his nieces and nephews or perhaps sons and daughters, arrived and convinced me to go with them on a banana boat ride off the shore.  In case you are wondering, a banana boat is a large, yellow, cylindrical raft with two runners along the side to make the bottom flat.  Sitting on the raft with your hands gripping rope handles and resting your feet on the runners, a jet ski pulls you along and tries to throw you off by taking tight turns and going over waves.  Think of going tubing except with multiple people at once. Right away, the jet ski pilot pulled a sharp turn and all four of us, not knowing that we had to lean on the turns to avoid tipping over, hit the water hard.  The water was super salty, but really warm.  I’ve never swam in an ocean that warm before.   Actually, except for a small backyard pool in Virginia, I had never swam in a body of water that warm before.  This what it must be like to go to the beach in Hawaii...

After two more spills and 15 minutes of gripping on for dear life, we finally had enough and were pulled back to shore.  After saying goodbye to everyone (which took longer, since Hama-chan made me drink another beer)  I finally left for my apartment to cook dinner.  

Right now the sun is setting, and in the graveyards that climb up from the streets into the mountains, I can see smoke and hear fireworks from families who are celebrating Obon at their ancestors’ grave sites.  I wonder if all Japanese summer days are this fun...

Barcode Haircut

After two grueling days of orientation and fun-filled nights in Kumamoto city, we finally checked out of our hotels and dragged ourselves to the Kokusai center for the last day of seminars.   This last day was completely devoted to Japanese language classes, and for the 10 of us JETs who had placed into the top level Japanese class, this meant we got spend a whole day playing games like 2 truths and a lie, studying slang words and the local dialect, and learning more complicated business phrases associated with answering the phone at work and exchanging business cards.  Since all of us already knew enough Japanese to get around and fulfill our basic needs, and since there weren’t any grades or tests associated with the classes, it was a pretty laid-back affair.  Learning dialect phrases was a lot of fun, though.  An easy example of Kumamoto-ben is what one says to express surprise:  most Japanese say “eeeeeehhhhh!?”  with raising intonation whenever they are shocked or surprised at something (go ahead, trying finding a Japanese TV show that doesn’t feature everyone on-screen going “ehhh!?” at some point during the program) , but when Kumamoto people are surprised or maybe slightly disgusted at something, they just say “BA!” in a very explosive way.

Even though we were the top class, we still practiced giving our self introductions 自己紹介 at the beginning.  Self introductions are strangely important in Japanese society.  Most times in America it suffices to say “Hi!  I’m (first name). Nice to meet you!”  and then give supplementary information like where you’re from, your hobbies, etc. later in the conversation, or bit by bit in the following days.  Not so in Japan, apparently.  Depending on the situation, your self-introduction might feel more like a speech than a formal greeting.  Anyway, since all of us had already practiced 自己紹介 exhaustively, we mixed it up by including two truths and a lie with our self introductions .  Almost everybody’s two truths and lie were related to experiences or skills that they had.  Mine were the following. Can you guess which one is the lie?

1.)  My brother and I, in certain seasons, involuntarily sneeze when we step outside into the sunlight.

2.) I like to nap on the kitchen counter.

3.)  Seeing shaving cream makes me feel uncomfortable, as does whipped cream.

The person who identifies the lie first and posts a comment on this blog might get a special prize mailed to them ....

Quick break:.  100 Yen stores (100 Yen is approximately a dollar, usually a little more).  I was lucky enough to have time to go to when while in Kumamoto city to get my own personal chopsticks + case, cleaning materials for my tatami mat room, and dehumidifiers for my apartment (prevent mold), among other things.   Anyone who has been to Japan will rave about 100 yen shops; everything is so mind-blowingly cheap and there are so many different things you can buy.  Pots, pans, kitchen knives, notebooks, umbrellas, socks, ties, shirts, shoes....  Sometimes I think that I might want to come back to Japan in the future just to shop at the 100 yen stores. I could rave for an entire blog about how amazing 100 yen shops are.  You can watch a virtual tour of a 100 yen store at this youtube link (the narrator has an Australian accent?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEb0b1GEaE8&feature=player_embedded

Returning to Hondo/Amakusa laden with crap that I bought at the 100 Yen store and at Don Quixote (a store that sorta defies category), I was felt that I was finally ready to spend a weekend by myself (or at least a day by myself), sorting through all of the things I had accumulated from multiple orientations, trips to various department stores, and cleaning out/disposing of things left over by my predecessor. Was I finally out of the spotlight?  Of course not.  Rather than let me cook ramen or curry at home by myself, Horiguchi-san offered to take me to his place to eat the left overs from dinner at his family reunion for Obon (a festival where your entire family returns to your hometown and visits the graves of your ancestors).  First imagine the typical, summer-time family reunion with aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and scores of little kids running every which way, lighting fireworks and bringing gigantic beetles into the house.  Now make sure everyone in your mental picture is Japanese, and then throw me into the picture.  Yes, once again I had to introduce myself to many people, be complimented on my Japanese and chopstick using skills, and answer peoples questions delivered in butchered English (they really are trying; it is not always the case that they don’t think I can understand their Japanese, but sometimes they want to try to speak English, if not just for good laughs).  What can I say: I’ve only being doing this for a week and a half, so it hasn’t gotten that old yet.  Being at  Japanese family reunion was a lot of fun, and for some reason or another I spent a lot of time with the branch of the family that had moved to Kyoto and didn’t understand Horiguchi-san’s colloquialisms and dialect.  I guess I liked them because we shared that point in common.

I tried asking how to say ‘family reunion’ in Japanese, but since these types of gatherings are so uniqsue to the holidays that they are associated with, it doesn’t really seem like their is a word itself for ‘family reunion.’    There is, however, a word in Japanese for a comb-over (that I learned today): a barcode haircut.

Chill Cafe

Kumamoto Castle

View from the top of the castle keep.

Some of the fancier looking rooms inside the castle.

I was surprised at how much I wanted to go back to Amakusa during the first day of orientation in Kumamoto, but after figuring out how to navigate the maze of shopping arcades and packed streets around our hotel in down town Kumamoto, I grew to become really envious of the JETs that lived within reasonable traveling distance of the city.  For me, Kumamoto is more than enough ‘city experience’ for me to get excited and wide-eyed.  What makes Kumamoto even cooler is when you realize you can see the castle’s soaring keep from all different parts of the city at unexpected times, like when you just happen to pass by a tiny road that aims toward the castle.  

The second day of orientation consisted of four seminars that felt a little too long (1.5 hours), especially for the seminars on topics which you already heard a lot about, but since there was more specific information on various topics, like what type of lessons and games to play with your different grade levels, what to look for when food shopping, and how to dispose of the giant, vicious, aggressive, poisonous centipedes that sometimes invade your house and hang out in your shoes until you decide to put them on in the morning and either squish them into a blue gooey mess or get bitten and have to go to the hospital.   

Yes. This is a pizza with tortilla chips on top.

This is the entirety of Chill Cafe. It's that small.

Awful story: so after lunch I went with one of the other JETs to the Best Denki (電気）store (think Best Buy) to look at the Mac Store, and we were surprised to find that the Mac Books there were $100+ dollars cheaper than they are in America and on the Apple Japanese website. However, I thought we had to get back at 1:10 instead of 1:30, so we ended up walking/running a few blocks back to the International Center only to find that we were a.) 20 minutes early and  b.) made ourselves hot and sweaty for no good reason.  Oops.  One extra person dislikes me in this world.

Rice and lamb in a perfectly spherical serving.

Happier story:  After orientation for the day, our gun 群 (pronounced ‘goon’) leader, the group leader of JETs local to Amakusa and nearby islands, took us out to a tiny cafe that his friend owned in Kumamoto.  By tiny, I mean that the entire place, seating area + kitchen, was about the size of a short bus.  This place definitely fits into the ‘whole-in-the-wall’ category.  Run by a tall white guy with the thick, black rimed glasses that are in style (with the hipsters) and tattoos all over his arms and his Japanese wife, the place serves a strange amalgam of Mediterranean/Greek foods and other random things, like a dish of rice, feta, and lamb, a pizza with tortilla chips and BBQ chicken on top, strange soy milk sauce pestos, and all sorts of drinks and smoothies.  Finding this place was like being told where there is a secret gold mine or buried treasure.  The food was outstanding, the music very hip(ster?), and the atmosphere of being crammed into a tiny place with only 8/9 seats with mostly gaijin and one or two hip young locals who are loyal patrons was definitely something to remember.  Also, and I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure the owner is addressed as Blue.  

The outdoor shopping streets of Kumamoto.  This is at night when everything has already shut down, so there aren't many people out and about.

新規JETの皆さん、集まれ！

Come Wednesday, I left the Kikai family's house for good and travelled with Horiguchi-san to Hondo, the largest city on Amakusa.  From there, the two other new Amakusa JETs and I were going to take a bus to Kumamoto City for a three day Prefectural Orientation.  MORE ORIENTATION?!  More talks about culture shock and taking out the trash and not drinking and driving?!  Yeah, I sorta thought it would be a little ridiculous, but on the other hand we would get to spend time in Kumamoto city at night, enjoying the "big city" experience.

The bus from Hondo took a little less than 3 hours, and after chatting for a little while (which, BTW, is a no no in most public transportation spaces in Japan) all three of us napped the rest of the way there.

But did we really arrive in Kumamoto?  All three of us were fooled when the driver announced that the next stop was Kumamoto station.  Kumamoto station? Kumamoto transportation center?  What's the difference?  We got off anyway, only to get a sneaky suspicion that we weren't in downtown Kumamoto.  After walking a bit in the direction of what looked like 'more civilization,' Emily was finally brave enough to ask for directions.  We were told that we were REALLY far off from our target, and that we'd better take the train from the station across the street to Sojo University.


Enter the train station: after successfully reading the kanji for Sojo University　崇城大学  on the station map, we had to ask yet another person in order to find the right train...


...or was it the right train? Actually, it probably was, but we made another botch by getting off at the WRONG SOJO UNIVERSITY!  How were we supposed to know that there were two?  Anyway, we finally gave up and asked the station manager at the tiny Sojo University stop if he could call us a taxi.  A 15 minute ride later, we were right in front of our hotel in the middle of downtown Kumamoto.


After checking our bags, we decided to head off to the location of the conference and grab lunch on the way.  Though the idea of going to Kaiten Zushi 回転寿し was raised (the places with the sushi on the little conveyor belts), we were informed by the hotel staff that there was no kaiten zushi places nearby.  Instead, I convinced Emily and Teresa to go to a cheap, 24 hour, Japanese fast food chain called Yoshinoya, a restaurant that serves primarily gyudon 牛丼 (bowl of rice with meat, vegetables, and sauce on top).  Sorry Emily and Teresa.  At least it was cheap and fast.


Speeding up the story, the first day of orientation itself was not much worth talking about.  Yes, there were some funny talks and some useful information, but I was surprised that all I felt was the desire to go back to Amakusa (or first go play in the Kumamoto, and then go to Amakusa).   The first day ended with tours of Kumamoto's famous castle given by local high schoolers.  Though I had already been to Kumamoto castle the last time I came to Japan, I went anyway, and it was great!  (All of my pictures are on my cellphone; I'll upload them later). 


That evening, everyone went to a beer garden (rooftop, outdoor space to drink and eat snack-like foods) down the street from the orientation site.  I was slightly unimpressed considering that I paid 3500 yen ($35) just to go, yet they gave us only a paucity of food.  Yeah, you are supposed to take advantage of the fact that it's all you can drink, but I was told even by the senior JETs that the food experience was not as good as last year's.   


Wrapping things up, the beer garden session ended in two hours and people split up into two groups: those going bar hopping afterwards and those going home/around Kumamoto.  I was in the latter.  Two other JETs from my hotel and I went around downtown Kumamoto, which has plenty of cool outdoor shopping streets that are covered and reserved for pedestrians, and got okonomiyake (my favorite; again me exerting my food opinions on others; oops) and went in and out of some interesting shops like Don Quixote (they have everything) and Best Denki ベスト電器 (think Best Buy).  New Apple laptops were like $800!!!! I almost bought one on the spot.  I'll probably go back later and get one, as my current laptop is wearing down and the charger unit is held together by tape (very dangerous, considering how hot it gets).  When finding the okonomiyake place, some employee of an all-you-can-drink bar (which, BTW, was much cheaper than the beer garden we went to) kindly walked us there.  And this guy was supposed to be standing outside of his place getting us to come in!  Instead he left his post and showed us the nearest okonomiyake place.  I love Japan so much sometimes...


LAST RANDOM COMMENT:  Kumamoto has some strange relationship with country music, and there is a big country music festival held outside the city every year. Some of the bars, like the mentioned above, boost a country music theme.   If country music is your thing, there is one city in Japan for you!

In Which Bruce Lee, Toyotaro, and my host dad remind me how to say ‘Killer Stranglehold’ in Japanese.

When work started the day after Hanabitaikai #2 花火大会 (fireworks festival), I rode to work with my desk neighbor, Arai-san, who happens to live down the street from the Kikai family in Shimoda.  

On Tuesday of that week, the day before I had to go to Kumamoto city, the prefectural capital, for yet another 3 day orientation,  the Kikais had a big BBQ and invited a lot of their neighbors and family to attend.  Unlike American BBQs where there is usually one or two people who manage a large grill and cook hamburgers, hotdogs, and steaks and whatnot, Japanese BBQs usually feature much smaller sized BBQs that everyone sits around and manages together by putting smaller slices of meat/seafood onto the grill and taking whatever looks done off the grill and onto your plate.   Some of the stuff that was a little harder to stomach but that I tried (and liked) anyway were the shrimp heads you were expected to eat along with the rest of the body (minus the tail), some other crustacean thing that was the size of my hand and that you had to slice down the middle and such out the meat from each half,  and the work like creatures that come out from these fancy looking sea shells which you eat by grabbing the shell like ‘head’ part of the body, putting the rest of the body in your mouth, and then sliding the meat off with your teeth.  

After the sun set and most of the kids ran inside to play video games/watch TV, I joined the rest of the adults at the table outside the garage (I got the feeling that the Kikais were a little better off than the average Japanese, and not only because they had a garage).  The only light illuminating the area was a motion activated light outside the garage, and the light go off quite frequently.  Each time it did, though, the guy next to me, Udo-san, would say “R-ret’s dancing MAMA!” and my host mom would get up and do a little dance to make the lights turn off.  Other ridiculous quotes from the night that included “MAMA” included the self-introduction from the woman across the table from me (damn me for forgetting her name), which  started with framing her face with her hands and then saying “BEAUTIFUL MAMA!”  So Japanese people do know some English...

The other memorable part of that evening was watching a Bruce Lee movie (Game of Death) later that night with my host dad and brother.  I brushed up on my body part vocabulary as I listened to the body parts Bruce Lee was crushing in each fight.  My host dad is also a Rocky fan, so when I showed him pictures of Philly and the Philly Arts Museum, he got really excited.  Toyotaro was busy playing video games at the time....   Oh well; not everyone is always going to be excited to see pictures of America.

On Wednesday 8/11, I left early on a bus from Hondo to Kumamoto city, the capital of Kumamoto prefecture and its biggest city.  More about my adventures there later.

Takahama Link

I finally remembered this cool website where you can check what's going on in Takahama.  It's all in Japanese, but if you just start clicking on stuff you'll find plenty of cool pictures.　

My Host Dad wishes I was Eric Clapton

In America, most of us are perfectly satisfied seeing fireworks only few times a year.  New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July are maybe the only occasions that most Americans experience fireworks.   In Japan, summer festivals featuring fireworks in some shape or form come at a dime a dozen.  In my first weekend alone I went to two of them, and they were not the only two happening on the island at the time:

After spending a day in Hondo, the largest city on Amakusa, shopping for things for my apartment and then returning to my apartment to clean up and organize, Horiguchi-san’s wife Yumiko took us to her parents’ place in Reihoku, an independent port city at the north western tip of Amakusa. After dinner, a parade passed through the street right in front of their house.  Students from the local school sports teams and both adults and kids from various clubs and organizations passed went by doing little dances and carrying little floats and signs and passing out free fans.  Amakusa is famous for ‘haiya’ dancing, thought to be the foundation of traditional Japanese dance as it is known today, and there is a huge festival in the spring where all of us JETs will get to do haiya dancing in a parade in Ushibuka.  Each town has their own special haiya dance, and I’ve already been lucky enough to see one haiya dance performance at a Coming of Age Ceremony in Ushibuka (more on that, with flip cam videos, later). 

Following the parade, we found all of the usual trappings of a Japanese summer festival: countless booths selling yakiniku (grilled chicken), takoyaki (grilled octopus balls), kakigoori (basically a slushy), drinks, fries, tools for children to annoy their parents (e.g. glowing plastic swords that make noises, waterguns), etc.   Also a staple of summer festivals: the gold fish game!  I’m sure it has a name of its own, but anyone who is familiar with Japanese festivals will know what I’m talking about.  Basically you try to catch little goldfish using only a tiny circular hoop with a piece of paper stretched across it.  It’s incredibly difficult because the paper breaks really easily.  I was not successful.  Supposedly guys are horrible at the game because they tend to be impatient.  Humph.

Rather than watching the fireworks from the festival grounds, we went back to Yumiko’s parents’ place and sat on the boardwalk near their house and watched the fireworks over the water.  The flashes of the fireworks mixed with the flashes of lightning from a storm out at sea, and on the hill overlooking the festival was an old Japanese castle.  On the horizon you could see the lights from Nagasaki prefecture, across the Amakusa sea.  (I plan to go there one day on a ferry from either Reihoku or Hondo.)  The fireworks lasted for what felt like an hour (was it an hour?  in that case it felt like two hours), and they didn’t really use a wide variety of fireworks until the end.  Whatever.  It was still an enjoyable evening.

Day two of my first weekend in Amakusa, I switched to a different host family, the Kikai family in Shimoda (the onsen town next to Takahama).  Whereas Horiguchi-san had only 1 child staying at his house when I was there, his daughter Rina (his other daughter goes to a boarding high school in Kumamoto city), the Kikais had six kids staying in their house at the time, only four of which were there own.  Sadly, the only one who’s name I remember is Toyotaro-kun　豊大郎くん, their only son, because the ‘Toyo’ 豊　in his name is the same as the ‘Toyo’ in ‘Toyotomi Hideyoshi’　豊臣秀吉, famous warlord from the Adzuchimomoyama period 安土桃山時代 that united most of Japan and also invaded Korea from Kyushu, bringing back with him a lot of Korean culture that became embedded into Kyushu culture as well.  An example would be the pottery style used by many potters throughout Kyushu, including the two potters here in Takahama.  If I remember correctly, Koreans baked their pottery at a higher temperature, creating sturdier products with different textures and colorations than older Japanese pottery techniques.  I may be confusing this with another instance when Japan borrowed pottery techniques from Korea/China.  I guess I’ll have to bust out my old Art of the Japanese Tea Ceremony readings and brush up on my Japanese pottery history.

Inside the Izakaya. Not the best picture, but I'm trying NOT to get my host brothers and sisters since they are my students too.

Woops!  Rambled too much there.  Anyway, the Kikais were super awesome, and they also had internet in their house (yes!).  That was the last time I updated my blog.  The night I arrived, all of us went to Hondo to see another fireworks festival and eat dinner at Kikai-san’s friend’s izakaya.  Did I explain izakaya before?  They are basically restaurants were you eat food in many courses and drink in between the courses.  I have yet to surpass two servings of nama-beer (‘raw’ beer?), mostly just because I a.) want to be polite in accepting what is offered to me b.) do not want to get drunk c.) still want to be able to speak Japanese and d.) do not want to be a financial burden as beer is more expensive than Japanese shochu 焼酎　(a clear distilled liquor, which I avoid since it has like 25%+ alcohol content).  Yes, I’ve been placed in a society where all males are expected to drink the same beer throughout the entire summer, even though it has almost no taste whatsoever.  At least it makes it easy to order in a bar：Nama bi-ru ippai onegaishimasu! 生ビール一杯お願いします！You aren’t even given any choice about which brand you want your nama beer from, but that is mostly because all of it is made by Asahi.

The fireworks in Hondo were, in my opinion, better than the ones in Reihoku, but that was to be expected since Hondo is the bigger city.  We also got to watch the fireworks up close from the roof of Kikai-san’s work place, which was located right across the street from the festival.  On the way back, we got stuck in traffic for what felt like an hour, during which time we watched a DVD of Kikai-san’s favorite Eric Clapton concert.  Kikai-san is really into blues and classic rock, and he tries to play on a guitar at home.  He sorta wishes I was Eric Clapton instead of Erik Smith.  Oh well.  What a memory: watching an Eric Claypton concert DVD in a car with six other Japanese kids (all under the age of 14) and my host dad and mom while stuck in traffic following a summer fireworks festival.  

RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE. OK.  I rambled too much.  I’ll have to end things here.  Tune in next time for “In Which Bruce Lee, Toyotaro, and my host dad remind me how to say ‘Killer Stranglehold’ in Japanese.”

Invasion of the Origami 折り紙 animals of dooooooomm...

When we last left our hero, he was battling the evil forces of endless Japanese, red-tape, government-issued forms and documents with his awesome Kanji writing abilities and killer inkan stamping skills (in Japan, rather than signing your name, you use a little seal/stamp called an ‘inkan’ with your name or part of your name engraved on it).  

After I wrote my new Japanese address about a million and one times (in case you are wondering, it is Kumamoto-ken, Amakusa-shi, Amakusa-machi, Takahamaminami 2577 Banchi or 熊本県天草市天草町高浜南２５７７番地),  I was finally free to do what ever I wanted at work.  This meant going through the mounds of paperwork I picked up at Tokyo Orientation, the boxes and boxes of teaching materials left by my predecessors, and the massive amounts of origami animals that my most immediate predecessor, Travis, left behind in all of his desk drawers. Really: there are two desks, one in the middle school and one in the city office, and both of them are overflowing with origami animals.  I just realized today that they are perfect a.) prizes for kids and b.) for an English lesson, since the first chapter that I will help teach in the middle school contains a dialogue about origami (thanks Travis!).  Moving my stuff into my apartment and transferring furniture from Travis’s place to mine was also on the list of things to do.  

Sometimes my time at work would be a little mindless/tiring, and I would have trouble focusing.  Luckily, thanks to the wonderful traditions associated with the Japanese office environment, coffee is served promptly at 10 and green tea is served with lunch and at around 3 PM.  So that’s how the Japanese get so much work down: caffeine!  

The city branch office where I work has about 30 people total, and all of them get to pass by my desk when going in and out the door.  This means that everyone gets to stop and say hi to me, ask me about everything that is going on in my life, and comment on whatever I am doing at the time.   I love it .  No seriously; I am not being sarcastic.  If I was in some room by myself or if my coworkers completely ignored me, it would be awful.  

My neighbors Arai-san and (host dad) Horiguchi-san are great.  Though when at home Horiguchi-san speaks normally and a little bit comprehensibly, at work he seems to speak with his lips puckered and in heavy dialect only, except when he answers the phone.  This makes me rely on Arai-san, my mother figure at work (she likes to make me bento lunches and give me candy sometimes), to convert the utterances of some of my coworkers into standard, grammatically correct, Tokyo-dialect Japanese.  This is especially problematic when the branch office boss comes over to my desk every day and shoots the breeze: I can barley understand a word he says and I have to rely completely on Arai-san to ‘interpret’ for me.  

Horiguchi-san also spent a lot of time with me as I went around to all of the schools I will teach at introduced myself to all of the teaching staff.   I tried my bo give a good self-introduction each time, but I am already exhausted of saying the same jikoshokai 自己紹介 over and over again that sometimes and shorten to just “Hi, I’m Erik.  I’m the new ALT.  Nice to meet you!”  The full introduction includes where I am from, my college, major, and age, but whenever I say that I’m 22 people always go’ WOOOAH??! WAKAI!!!!’ (young!).   I always retort that if my agohige 顎髭 beard wasn’t there that I would look even younger.  I guess I should have said goatee instead, yagihige 山羊髭.

Just a few of the dozens of origami animals that live in my desk.

So I thought I was going to be able to write about my first two fireworks festivals, welcome BBQ, and my second host family all in the same blog post.  It doesn’t look like that is going to happen, as this is already way too long.  Oops.  Sorry. Not an exciting blog post, but there are plenty of exciting parts yet to be posted.  I only have your convenience in mind, reader, and that it why I am trying to split up my story into bite-sized pieces.

...and we're back!

Yes, it has been over a week now since I've had internet and been able to post on my blog.  Not my fault, let me tell you.  Lucky for all of you, I've been keeping (semi-)detailed records of all of my fun in a ready-to-post-on-blog format.  Rather than overwhelm you with blog entries though, and seeing that I probably won't have as much excitement and fun in my life now that I've settled in and all of the summer festivals have ended, I'll post one old entry each day until I've used I've used them all up.  Hopefully, in the course of a week or so, we'll be all caught up and I can write new entries as time allows me (actually, since I only work 35 hours a week, most of which is spent sitting at my desk, I will probably almost always have time).

You can spoil the endings of my stories/get an abridged version of what has happened to me by looking at my Facebook albums, which I will post very soon.  Trying to post photos on this blog is way to cumbersome, so but I'll try to include links to photos when/where it is appropriate.

A side note on photos:  though my students, or at least the ones I've met so far, are hilarious and adorable, I'm not permitted to post photos of them in public spaces on the internet.  Probably I won't post them at all, even on more secure sites like a password protected Picassa album (they exist, don't they?) or Facebook.  If you do want to see pictures of my students in a non-pedophilic way, you'll have to ask me directly.

Here are some photos that I just have to share now:

This is Takahama, namesake of this blog.  The 'hama' part means beach.

Not actually the primary way of entering the beach, but I wish it was. 

Yes, this is where I live.  Rather, it takes me less than 5 minutes by bike to get to the beach from my apartment, and less than 1 minute from my workplace.  Off in the distant waters are dolphins, and there are octopi and sea urchins that live near the jetty you see in the first picture.  Yes, go ahead, be jealous.

My first Kangeikai 歓迎会

So here's the deal.

Last Wednesday, I finished my Tokyo Orientation session and moved to Amakusa city, Amakusa town, Takahama village, where I will teach at the middle and elementary schools and work at the city office.

Some JETs, when they arrive at their contracting organization, are dropped off at their apartment/house with their luggage and told "See you tomorrow at work!"  and nothing more.  Me?  I've sorta lucked out.  When I arrived on Wednesday, I was greeted by two older JETs and a city officer holding a giant sign featuring my name and picture (as well of those of the other new JETs on my island).

After a quick stop at a nearby mall (the closest one two my hometown, 2.5 hours away) for some Italian food lunch, we drove to Hondo 本渡, the largest city on Amakusa island, where the city Board of Education is located.  This was it.  My first Jikoshokai (self introduction).  We've been told about a million times about how our jikoshokai is the most important thing in our Japanese careers because a.) it serves as your first impression, b.) you tell everyone about yourself and c.) you'll have to do it a million and one times.  Emily, the other new JET that came the same week as I did, politely allowed me to go first.   Luckily, I had done Jikoshokai enough times in Japanese class to be able to do mine without much stress.  In reality, as long as you can say something in Japanese, you'll impress everyone you meet in Japan.  Japanese expect foreigners to speak little to no Japanese whatsoever, and the thought that they can read and write kanji (chinese characters) blows their mind.  Good news for me!  Basically, everywhere I go, I'm told how JOUZU 上手 I am at Japanese and how I speak so PERAPERA ぺらぺら  .  Later, everyone eventually finds out that I can't understand everything, particularly the multiple dialects that are spoken within the 5 towns where I teach elementary and junior high school,  but the few hours of being told how JOUZU I am is a huge confidence boost.  Yes, tell me again how awesome I am!

At the Hondo BOE, I met my first host dad, Horiguchi-san.  He lives in Ooe, the town next to the one I will eventually live in,  and loves to drink, smoke, watch baseball, and speak outrageously colloquial Japanese that I cannot understand. He seems to have mastered most of the 5 dialects in the 5 different villages in Amakusa town.  

That's Horiguchi-san on the right, with random girls at a Hanabi-taikai (fireworks festival) that I attended on Saturday.  Girls often dress up in kimono at Hanabi-taikai, and guys to do too if they have a girlfriend who forces them to do likewise, fulfilling some Japanese romantic dream they've held since infancy. 

Horiguchi-san and his family are supposedly Catholic, which is cool I guess.  Ooe, the town he lives in, is famous for its 'cathedral,' one of the oldest churches in Japan, that survived even the time of great persecution.  Amakusa totes it Christian roots with cute, anime nuns and priests, as well as the name-sake of the island, "Japanese Jesus"  a.k.a. Amakusa Shiro.  He basically led a revolution that ended with a whole bunch of Christians getting killed/martyred.  When it was discovered that Christians still lived on the island even after hundreds of years had passed since Shiro's downfall, it was considered a huge surprise/miracle.  

Horiguchi-san and his family (his wife Yumiko and 14 year-old daughter Rina) were extremely nice to me, and Yumiko did my laundry even when I didn't ask her to.   (Side note: Yes, I realize that, by Western standards, women are placed into unfairly limiting roles in Japanese society, but as a guy living in Japan, I have to say that it is extremely nice to have your female coworkers bring you tea and coffee twice a day without you asking...)   The most embarrassing times where when I left my underwear pants in the shower room and forget that they were there.  Rina walked in and found them and was probably traumatized for life.

Dinner the first night was, guess what, sushi and sashimi!  No really, folks.  Japanese people don't eat sushi and sashimi all the time. They eat it only a tad bit more often than we do.  Well, maybe since we get such fresh fish on Amakusa, they eat it here more often, but in general sushi and sashimi is considered just as much a delicacy in Japan as we consider it to be in America.

At work, the city office, I once again give my jikoshokai to each section of the office.  Unfortunately, like Horiguchi-san, the city office head/ my boss speaks some variety of Japanese that I can't understand after hearing it only once.  Oh well. I only have to talk to him a few times in my career, probably.  

There is not orientation or training once you get to your contracting organization.  It is assumed that you a.) already know what you are doing and will do it well or b.) that you will sit and do nothing  but watch other people until you figure out what you are supposed to be doing and then do it.  I am serious.  Some Japanese are known to go to their new work place and do nothing but sit at a desk and watch other people work for weeks on end until they eventually get up one day and start working themselves.  Luckily, since I am such a diligent Swattie, I went to work instantly in sorting out all of the teaching materials that I had received at orientation,  collecting all of my notes into a single notebook, brainstorming ideas for class activities, etc.  I also had to spend a lot of time filling out forms with my name and address on it:  bank account, alien registration, gas, electricity, change of residence, automatic salary deposit, etc.  

WOAH.  It is 12:11 AM here and I haven't even gotten to the fun stuff yet.  Oh well.  Check out my facebook page for a photo summary of what has happened so far.  I'll be back tomorrow to finish the story, including juicy happenings from the weekend and tonight...

(OK. Unfair. Juicy is far too much of a charged word to use here, but I had to catch your attention somehow, right?)

Hello Amakusa, bye bye civilization

After having arrived in Amakusa last Wednesday, I'm finally with a host family that has internet!  Tomorrow I'll update my blog with pictures and stories of adventures, interesting foods (shark, octopus, sea urchin...all raw),  and fun.

Embarrassing Questions, Episode 1.

Episode 1 should really begin with the first time I am asked an embarrassing question, but I think I can do a preview episode where I explain the situation and provide a hilarious anecdote from today.

Multiple speakers at orientation have informed us that getting embarrassing questions from students and coworkers, in addition to being touched inappropriately, is sort of inevitable no matter how many times you spell out where your personal space exists and what information is private to you?  Girls will be asked what size bra they wear, or someone might just try to figure it out for themselves with a little hands on experiment.  Guys will be asked how big they are, and will be forced to become "No-Touchie!" ninjas to block poking and grabs from any curious little kids.

We were told about the "Do you have a [significant other]?" question so much that we were able to incorporate it into a practice teaching session in which we played the role of the students.  Just listen:

(students ask the JET questions about his or her life to get to know them; they have to stand up and wave like it's a press conference before they can sit down)

Student 1: Where are you from?
JET: Indiana, in the USA!
Student 2: Do you have a boyfriend?
JET: (laughs) No. I do not have a boyfriend at this time.
Student 3: Do you want a boyfriend?
JET: Yes. I want a sugar-daddy. (<----Delivered with completely straight face)

Our Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) who taught us about co-teaching today was absolutely hilarious and everyone adored him.  He was definitely not your stereotypical reserved, quiet Japanese man. His favorite line throw in between exercises was "Am I a very goood Engrish teacher? Yes or yes?"  It may not sound like a knee-slapper in writing, but when an overly energetic little Japanese man says it with a very thick Japanese accent....  someone even asked during the Q&A session "Can you come with me to my prefecture and be my JTE?"

Don't Get Arrested in Japan

...it really sucks if you do.  Yup, that's just another thing we've had pounded into our heads here again and again.  The Japanese judicial system is very strict, and there is a zero tolerance policy for anything.

Caught with anything except a 0.0% blood alcohol content while drive?  6 months (up to 3 years or something?) in jail with fees around $5,000.   Don't expect to have your job back when you come out either.  In the car with a driver who has had anything to drink? You get the same charges.  (Luckily, if you can't get home, they have a service that you call up where two guys in one car come to drive you and your car home...not that I plan to ever use these services or break these laws, but still fascinating).

Caught with illegal substances?  Expect even more pricy fines, years of jail time, and definite deportation from the company if you are foreigner.  Co-workers find that you did drugs in the past?  Expect to be ostracized and possibly fired anyway.

Arrested for anything? Expect to be imprisoned for up to a month, even if you are innocent, while they investigate your case.  They don't have to give you a translator, either.

Like to carry pocketknives because they are so handy?  Those are considered concealed weapons, and you can get arrested for carrying them around and jailed.

MORAL OF STORY:  I don't think many of you have to worry about committing crimes like these, and I am really just sharing this info because I find it so interesting, but DON'T GET ARRESTED IN JAPAN.  It's just about the worst thing. Ever.

いよいよ 出発！ Finally, Departure!

[This is an unfinished post]

I'm sitting now in my hotel room at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's busiest districts.  Shinjuku's train station, last time I heard, is technically the busiest in the world according to number of people using it each day.

I personally don't think there is too much I can write about my journey here.  The flight: it was long (4 in-flight movies + TV shows).  The arrival: it was organized (JET people every 10 yards pointing you were to go).  The bus trip to Tokyo: semi-impressive (rice patty, building, rice patty, buildings, taller buildings, even taller buildings, and then finally some fancy Tokyo landmarks like Tokyo tower).  My travel colleagues: pretty cool.  The first three people I sit down with at the gate in DC happened to be my neighbors for both of my flights.  Yup. Row 62 A, B, C.  62A was me with the window seat (yes!), 62B was Ashley Spute (also coincidentally the person I sat next to at orientation), and 62C was Greg Stevens (coincidentally former classmates with my brother's fiance).

After we settled into our hotel, Greg and I ventured out into western Shinjuku to find a raman shop, check out the cell phones (yes, they have Droids here too), tour a Manga Cafe (you can get a private stall with a computer, TV, and access to a manga library and some food), and just take in the sights and sounds of the city.

Tomorrow we start orientation, business suits and all! OK. That's three blog posts in the last hour. Enough. Also, WAAAAY too many parentheses in this post.