Saturday, March 27, 2010
KitKat Collection
This is a project I started way back when I first got here, collecting weird flavored KitKats. Because there are a lot in Japan. A LOT. I've amassed quite a collection over a year and a half. Take a look at some of the crazy flavors they've come up with. There are still many more out there, and I'm going to keep adding to my collection as I find them!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I'm back!!
It's been, like, 6 months since I've updated this blog... Sorry to anyone who still reads it! (Mom...)
Briefly, here's what has occurred to me as to why I've stopped blogging. Basically, when I got here, I was "living abroad in Japan," and my time here was like a reeeally protracted vacation or study abroad experience. Now, in my second year, and particularly in the last 6 months, it's started to feel more like I LIVE in Japan. My life is here. I've gotten into a routine. I'm abroad, but this is my life now. At least for now. You know? Anyway. With a mindset like that, the everyday things seem less noteworthy, and any travel I do tends to be to places I've already been. However, I will try to update periodically, with pictures and things.
Here's an overview of what I've been doing for the last 6 months:
Fall 2009
Birthday Party: Lee and my birthdays are pretty close, so we had the 2nd annual joint birthday party at my place. Of course, like all our parties, it was... a costume party (though tame in comparison to the ones we've been having this winter. See below). Check out the pictures.
Hiroshima Sake Festival: In October, right around my birthday, we went to Hiroshima, like we did last year, for the annual Sake Festival. Of course we also went to Miyajima and the floating torii gate. Sadly, this was the weekend I got the phone call that our dog Midnight had passed away... Then as we were preparing to drive home, we discovered Emily's car battery had died. Luckily fate (and Lara, from half way around the world) intervened, in the form of jumper cables Lana had reluctantly accepted from Lara when she left, and swore she's never need. Fail. Photo gallery here.
Shiso International Festival: The Shiso International Festival was in October. The Shiso ALTs worked 2 booths, selling "American food," aka corn dogs and ice cream sundaes. Yum... Also, my friends from Kobe came all the way for the festival! Int'l Festival pictures.
(Oh, in the first series of pictures, we were having a welcome party for Julie, who replaced Andrea as the teacher at Tsukasa School, when Satomi mentioned she needed a haircut. So Caitlin said: "Got a pair of scissors?")
Halloween: We had two Halloweens this year: One in Himeji, a JET party, and one night out in Osaka (us and the hundreds of other crazy foreigners packing the streets of Shinsaibashi in costume and scaring the locals, who had no idea what was going on). Halloween pictures.
Kobe JET Conference: Also known as the biggest waste of time EVER, this is an annual two day conference run by JET which brings ALTs and JTEs together to listen to lectures (read: sleep), participate in workshops (read: do the Hyogo Tourism Board's job for them by spending half a day coming up with promotional campaigns to increase tourism), and come to a better understanding of effective ways to team-teach English (read: accomplish absolutely nothing). But we did have a fun time getting Mexican food and bar hopping at night! Also a few random pictures from dinner at Julie's house and a game of Cranium. Kobe Conference pictures.
The rest of my pictures from roughly September through December, I've thrown into an album I'm just going to call Miscellany. This includes:
- All night clubbing in Osaka, where we made some new Japanese friends, including a guy who studied abroad at UMSL! Woo St. Louis!
- The Shiso JHS Speech Contest (my kids won again--4th year in a row!)
- A trip up Mt. Shosha in Himeji, where they filmed The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise
- A weekend trip to Kyoto, where Caitlin, Emily and I met Emily's friend Nami and her boyfriend Hiroshi (they've since gotten married!)
- A day at the Kobe Outlets with my friend Sayu
- What I guess was effectively my first date with Takuya, when we went up to the top of Mt. Rokko in Kobe.
- Some crazy birds
- A day trip to Okayama with Lana and Heke
- 2ND ANNUAL SHISO THANKSGIVING!!
-Kobe Luminarie
- Yakiniku in Tajima to meet Matt's fiancee Khwan, ahead of Lana, Caitlin and my trip to Thailand, where we attended their engagement ceremony!
That takes care of fall. Now on to...
Winter 2009-1010
THAILAND!: Over New Years, Lana, Caitlin and I went to Thailand! The trip coincided with our friend Matt's (a fellow JET) traditional Thai engagement ceremony, in the small northern town where his Thai fiancee lives. We were so lucky to be invited to that, and they even had us participate a little! It was really amazing. We spent a day there, then went to Chiang Mai, a really cool city in the north of Thailand; spent 2 days at the beach in Hua Hin, near Bangkok; and then finished the trip in Bangkok, where we shopped saw the sights for three days, before flying home. We had some amazing experiences, and some I'd rather forget (the 12 hour overnight train ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, followed by the 5 hour train ride with no AC in 100 degree weather on wooden benches to Hua Hin on New Years Eve day).
Matt and Khwan's Engagement Ceremony (professional pictures)
Parties: We've upped the ante for parties this winter, with the last three becoming increasingly more ridiculous.
1. Feliz Derelicto (Christmas / Zoolander themed party) (December)
2. Alice in Wonderland party (Caitlin's birthday party) (January)
3. Mardi Gaga (Mardi Gras / Lady Gaga themed party) (March)
January Recap: January sucks. The holidays are over, and it's freezing cold and dark. So we livened it up with some fun trips. One day, I went skiing (only the second time in my life, and possibly the last if I don't get my back in shape) with Takuya, Emily and Takuya's friend. Takuya and his friend are decent snowboarders. Emily and I both suck at skiing (it was her first time, and for all intents and purposes, mine too). We took a lesson, and were the only people over the age of 12. No joke. Also in January, we took a trip to Kyoto to see Caitlin's sisters play soccer with their team from Mt. Holyoke. (That's why they were at the Alice party). January pictures.
February Recap: February was a busy month! There was a masquerade party in Osaka; a (small) matsuri in Ichinomiya for the Japanese holiday Setsubun, with a big bonfire and yummy stall food; a Superbowl party; a "superdate" (initially supposed to be like a massive double date with all the couples, but turned into "everyone date Paul," because Heke's boyfriend was visiting from the states); a sushi eating contest at a 100 yen kaiten (revolving) sushi restaurant (people are STILL full. The winner, Lee, ate 32 plates. For point of comparison, I ate 9 plates. I usually eat 4 or 5 plates. 9 was pushing it for me); and, saving the best for last, the OKAYAMA NAKED MAN FESTIVAL!! (Hadaka Matsuri). It's an annual festival where thousands of men dress up in fundoshi (loincloths) in the middle of winter, get drunk, and run around the temple splashing themselves with holy water and yelling, before gathering in the middle of the temple to battle for the holy sticks dropped into the crowd by the monks, which, if you get them, will bring you good fortune in the coming year. I know. You totally wish you had been there. February pictures.
That's it for the recap of the last 6 months. Enjoy the pictures. I'll try to update periodically (though hopefully in smaller installments, because no joke, this took ALL DAY. Luckily, it's spring break right now! So I'm just hanging around the office).
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tokyo Silver Week
Caitlin and I took the Shinkansen up on Saturday, and hung out in Asakusa, where we were staying. We had dinner in Shibuya, burgers, real burgers, with cheese and bbq sauce and pineapple. Due to the stupid fact that Tokyo subways stop at 12, we decided not to go dancing like we'd planned, but go back to our hostel.
Sunday we scoped out a flea market and then met up with Lana in Harajuku. We shopped and saw Meiji Shrine, and a bizarre store called condomania, which is exactly what it sounds like. We had Thai food for dinner, which was great, and then met Caitlin's friend Cameron and his 3 friends back in Asakusa. Since there's nothing much to do in Asakusa, we ended up getting an all night karaoke room and hanging out there, until circumstances required that we return to our hostel.
Monday we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market, and had really fresh sushi at a little place in one of the many maze-like alleys around the market. Walking (or, more accurately, squeezing and staggering) through the market area made me feel like I was really in Asia, the foreign smells and the jam packed little streets with severed fish heads staring at you and weird creatures floating in icy water. In the afternoon we walked around Ginza, the fashionable shopping district. I came across a print shop where I found this gorgeous print by a Japanese wood block artist from the early 20th century names Kawase Hasui. I've fallen in love with his work, it has a very realistic and yet very picture-book feel to it. It's very idealized, peaceful and calm. You can take a look at some of his prints here. The one I bought is below.
Monday night we went to Tokyo Tower, because the view at night is really cool. Then Tuesday we went to Nikko, about 2 hours outside Tokyo, where there is an impressive collection of shrines and temples. One of the shrines has carvings of monkeys on it doing the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" pose. Apparently these carvings have something to do with the origin of that phrase, though I don't understand how. Due to unfortunate circumstances, we were forced to stand the entire 2.5 hour train ride back to Tokyo, and were exhausted when we got back. We had dinner at a little place near the hostel, and accidentally ordered spam patties. Then we went back to Ginza to have dessert at a place called Alice Cafe, which is a theme restaurant where the waiters dress like Alice and the place looks like Wonderland. It's dark, like you really are in a rabbit hole, the walls are draped with blue fabric and there are mirrors on the ceiling. It was a lot of fun, but I was very conscious of being the only foreigners in there. Clearly it was off the beaten path.
Tuesday night, Cameron and his friends were supposed to come in to the city again to meet up, but due to what I'm not sure, lack of consideration or immaturity and poor planning, they chose to wait until 10 to let us know they were actually still in Hanno, where Cameron lives, an hour outside of Tokyo. But why didn't we come out there? We could have a house party. Long story short, Caitlin and Lana and I disagreed about whether such a plan would be a lot of fun or a mind-numbingly juvenile throwback to freshman-year frat parties, and we parted ways, them going to Hanno and me going back to the hostel.
We met up again the next morning. I had breakfast at a little cafe in Asakusa, did a little last minute souvenir shopping (I bought a gorgeous silk robe and a Starbucks mug-I'm collecting the different ones from the major cities). We went to Roppongi Hills, the huge shopping/housing/entertainment complex for lunch, and while Caitlin and Lana shopped I went to try to find the studio of Murakami Takashi, a Japanese artist I like. I assumed his studio would include a gallery, which it did, but the building was closed, probably because of the National holiday. So I didn't get to see it, but it was still cool to see where his studio was.
We left Tokyo at 3 and got back to Yamasaki around 8 or 9. It was a fun trip, but it was tiring. The hostel we were staying at was in no way relaxing. It deserves its own entry, but I'll try to do it justice here. The only redeeming quality was the price, which at under 20 dollars a night is unbeatable. That said, I would at all costs avoid staying there again in the future. It was not too far from the subway, which was good. But Asakusa is not the most exciting area of Tokyo. The guidebook actually used the word "yawn" to describe it. There was one toilet per floor (one physical toilet) and it kept running out of toilet paper. One of the girls in our room the first night came back at 6 am and had forgotten her key, she knocked and woke us up to let her in. There was no one at reception at that time. The other 3 nights we moved into an 8 bed mixed dorm. There was no lock on the door. Again, 1 toilet for the entire floor. The common space was a kitchen (cockroaches) and through the kitchen was the one sink and shower (no lock) on the floor. Zero privacy. I showered on Sunday night because there was no one around at 3 am when we got back, but that was it. I couldn't shower again until I got home Wednesday night. I know. Disgusting. The security was a joke. They told us that after 12 the front door would be locked, and we would need a code to get in. When we came back at 3 Sunday night, the door was open, which meant we were able to walk right in, and right up into our dorm room, which, you will recall, also had no lock. There was one guy sitting up in the kitchen on his computer at that time, a guest with insomnia, I assumed. It turns out he wasn't even a guest there. His friend was, but he had nowhere to stay, so he was just hanging out in the hostel. He made himself perfectly comfortable in our dorm. We came back one day to find him sitting with his laptop on Caitlin's bed, which he had clearly climbed over to plug in his cords. Caitlin was understandably annoyed. It's common hostel courtesy, don't enter another person's bed space. I've stayed at a lot of hostels, and some of them were pretty dirty, but I've never stayed at one that was so completely oblivious to the convenience and comfort of their guests. They didn't even have individual bed lights, so when you got back late, like we did every night, and the lights were off and people were sleeping, you had to fumble around for your things in the dark, or use your cell phone light.
Anyway, other than the hostel and the unfortunate disagreement about Hanno, it was a great trip. Here are pictures:
Japanese Drivers License
Finally, after months of agony and defeat, I passed my road test on the second try and got my Japanese license. Yay! No more biking around the inaka. I can go to the gym again. I can drive to Himeji. Life is good.
The process of actually getting the license started in July before I went home, when I started the whole process of filling out the paperwork and such. I had to schlep to Akashi, which meant taking the bus an hour to Himeji, then taking the train to Akashi, for my road test, which I failed the first time. You drive on a closed course, which sound pretty simple, right? Well, driving on the course, that is to say, what they expect you to do, bears little resemblance to what I've known for the last 8 years as "driving." In fact, all the road test tests is your ability to take the test. Not actually drive on a road, where you're more concerned with paying attention to the real-time action on the road than with following the procedure.
My second road test, scheduled on the earliest available day, which was a month after my first road test and luckily on a day I had off from school, I left the house at 7:30 to catch the bus to Himeji. I caught the train to Akashi, and the bus to the driving center, where I arrived at 10. I checked in to the test window, and then had to wait until 12, when they let you walk the course. Since it was the same course as last time, and I spend the whole 2 hours that time stressing and studying the course map, this time I decided for my own sanity to get out of the building, and I went to Starbucks and read until 12. I walked the course twice. I chatted with a guy I assumed was American (Japanese-American) but who turned out to just be Japanese, though his English was completely unaccented and fluent. All these things helped calm me down, and at 1 I was the first to go. I was really nervous, but I stayed calm, and drove the course without incident. Though, that alone is not enough to ensure you pass, they're so anal. When I finished, the cop was trying to tell me my result, but I didn't understand what he was saying. He repeated himself about 5 times before (a little exasperated, I think) he said "Ok! Ok!" Which I took to mean I had passed. I was so relieved, I was shaking. They told me to go and sit inside and wait.
As it turned out, I was the only one of the group that day who passed. They test all the foreigners together in that 1 o'clock block, and there were about 12 of us. I waited until 2, then they took me to another office, handed in some paper work, and took me to another place to wait until 3. At 3 they had me go wait in the lecture with all the Japanese people who had passed their tests, and take our pictures. Finally at 4:30 or 5, I got my license and left. I got back to Yamasaki at 7. It was a 12 hour day.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Back to School
School has started again, and that means it's sports festival time~! The sports festival is an annual event, like field day or color wars, but WAY more ritualized, because, after all, this is Japan. The actual thing isn't until the 13th, but the week and a half before are dedicated to practicing everything from marching, to singing the school song, to dancing, to more marching, to group calisthenics. There is not much going on in the way of classes, which means a continued light load for me. I'm spending the time working on my English boards and re-vamping my Miriam Dollar system. In light of the recent crime wave (ie kids stealing Miriam Dollars from one another, and in on instance, a second year setting up an extortion racket), I decided to change the rules. Now the students have to write their names on the Miriam Dollars (or I have to do it for them) so no one else can use them. The tricky bit is while I know many of the kids names, I have trouble recalling them from nowhere. If I see a kid's name written, I can usually find the face, but going from face to name is much harder. So we'll see how this works.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Himeji Beer Garden
Last weekend we took Lara to Osaka to see her off as she returned to America. Before she left, she and Lana had their long-awaited sushi-eating contest. They tied at 16.5 plates each. To put that in perspective for you, they each usually eat about 7 plates for a meal. I usually eat 4. Here are some pictures of the epic battle:
Friday night I had an enkai with my teachers. We went to Himeji, to this really nice hotel with a Western-style buffet. It was delicious. I voluntarily ate two helpings of salad. They had cheese and crackers, bread sticks wrapped in prosciutto, pasta salad, roast beef, meat sauce pasta, soup, salad, fresh fruit and fruit tarts. It was delicious. Then we went for karaoke afterwards. Karaoke with the teachers is always an experience. But this time was the first time we got a private room instead of going to this one karaoke bar in Yamasaki which is just public with everybody in the same bar. So it was a little more awkward (to me) all sitting around in a U and singing. I think I preferred the other way, and the izakaya style dining. The big round tables at the hotel restaurant made it hard to talk to many people. Usually I enjoy talking with some of the other teachers, but this time it wasn't quite as homey and relaxed a feeling as it is at an izakaya. Oh, and the worst part of the night came when the vice principal, who I really like usually, called me over to him (he was drunk by this point) and said "Miriam, you gained weight in America." Just said it, just like that. I've heard stories from other JETs about co-workers saying things like that, which we would consider totally inappropriate, but I'd never experienced it before. On the one hand, because of the nature of the comment I was annoyed, and started worrying he was right. But on the other hand, I kind of feel like the fact that he said it means I'm considered more a part of the group. Maybe. I don't know.
Saturday night we were all itching to get out of Yamasaki. There was a party going on with some JETs up north in Hyogo, but it became a logistical nightmare trying to figure out how to get there (3+ hours on the train, or 3 hours driving?) so we decided to skip it. Instead, we went to Himeji and went to a beer garden. Beer gardens are these things in Japan in the summer, on the roofs of department stores, where for a flat rate (usually 25-30 bucks) you get all-you-can-drink and eat. There are all these long tables set up, and you just hang out and drink beer or watered-down chu-hi and eat lots and lots of fried food until you feel sick/ get your money's worth. So we did that until 9:30 when it ended, then we went over to this Irish pub we know, and had some more drinks and snacks. We were considering doing karaoke, but since we were tired we decided to skip it. We were waiting until 12 to go check in at the Toyoko Inn, because if you arrive after midnight you get your room for half-price. Well, we got to the Toyoko Inn at 12 and guess what? The one in Himeji doesn't do the half-price deal. We were really annoyed. I thought, oh well, I guess we have to pay full price. But Lana and Caitlin said "ok. So let's go sleep in the car." I couldn't believe they were serious. There we were, in the hotel, we could still get a full 8 hours of sleep, and they wanted to walk all the way back to the car to sleep. We argued about it for a while, and finally I said, "ok, well you guys can go sleep in the car, I'm staying here." So that's what we did. I got a single room and they went back and slept in the car. Honestly, if it had been, like, 4 in the morning, and we were totally stranded with no where to go, and we just needed a place to crash for a couple hours, I'd have thought sleeping in the car sounded like a fun adventure. But since we had a place to stay, and the entire night ahead of us, I wanted to sleep in a nice comfortable bed. Anyway, we met up the next morning for breakfast, did some shopping, went to the flea market, got sushi for lunch, and came back to Yamasaki.
Also some miscellaneous pictures of the rice paddies around my school. I was biking home and the light was really nice so I took some pictures.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Return of Blogging
I'm going to try to start up this blog again, though probably less frequently than I was doing before. For now, a brief recap of the last month:
The first term of the Japanese school year ended in mid-July, and summer vacation began. I went home to the US for three weeks, from July 24th. It was my first time back since I came to Japan last year. I spent a week in Boston visiting my parents, then a week in St. Louis visiting friends from college, then another week in Boston. My brother Benjamin was working in Williamstown, MA on the Williamstown Theater Festival, so we went to visit him and saw a few plays (one so-so, one GREAT, and one absolute crap).
I flew back to Japan on August 14th and went straight to Okinawa to meet up with Lara, Lana and Caitlin for a last hurrah of a tropical vacation before Lara left to move back to the US. Then I came back to Yamasaki and, the very next day, schlepped to Akashi to take my driving test, which I failed. The test here is insanely picky, they make you drive this closed course and they pick out stupid little anal-retentive details to fail you for, like not checking your left side twice before turning, or signaling 20 meters, not 30 meters, before the light. I was so pissed about failing, and I can't take the test again until September 14th. In the meantime, though, I have time to take a driving class at the driving school here.
The new JETs arrived in Shiso while I was in the states. I met them last week. We had a big Karaoke marathon. They all seem really cool, which is good, but I'm still so sad Lara left, and George is leaving soon. It's a lot of upheaval, and in case you didn't know, I don't handle change well.
We went to Osaka this weekend to see Lara off. She left early Sunday morning. We had planned to have a big last night out, but we were all so exhausted we kind of crapped out by 2. Lara left at 5, so we had a sleepy goodbye as we put her in the cab. It feels really weird in Yamasaki knowing she's not here. I think I'm kind of in mourning.
School is starting again. The student are back for their term tests. Classes start next week. Then we have a few weeks of half-school, half-sports festival prep, before the sports festival happens on September 13th. Luckily, that means I get that Monday off, so I don't have to take vacation time to go to Akashi for my road test.
Here are the links to the pictures I've put up.
Here are some from the trip to Matsuyama we took just before I went home. Matsuyama is a town on the island of Shikoku, famous as the setting of the famous book Botchan. There is a very famous, very old onsen (hot spring) there.
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