Miriam's JET Journal

Friday, September 25, 2009

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:

Sushi eating contest

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.

Beer Garden

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.

Rice Paddies

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.

USA Summer '09

Okinawa

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.

Matsuyama

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Attack of the Swine Flu!

So obviously the big news around the world lately has been the swine flu outbreak. Japan was obsessively trying to control its borders in a spectacularly failed attempt to stop the flu from entering the country. We are now in the midst of an outbreak centered--where? Hyogo. My prefecture.

It started this weekend with a few cases in Kobe and Osaka, both within two hours of my town. Now I've heard there are cases in Himeji, which is the nearest city to me. Basically I'm sitting in the middle of the outbreak. No one in my town seems to have it yet. However, the government is freaking out, and they've closed all the schools in the prefecture for the rest of this week. Though the teachers still have to come in.

Everyone is wearing face masks. We've been urged to do so. While this might seem scary to Americans, who aren't used to (a) seeing face masks in use regularly, and (b) people freaking out obsessively about getting sick, keep in mind that many people in Japan wear face masks all winter long, simply to avoid getting the flu. It's not weird here. To us, seeing people all over wearing masks makes it seem like there's an outbreak of some deadly disease. But here they use them all the time. The stores are sold out because there was a rush on masks this weekend after the first cases were announced.

I know that the WHO is classifying this as a level 5 pandemic or whatever, and I'm doing my best to take the necessary precautions, but I have to say, honestly, people need to CALM DOWN about this flu. People over here have been acting like it's an outbreak of the plague. The Board of Education called all the ALTs in for a meeting yesterday to ask us if we'd be willing to hold off on going home for a while, instead of this summer, waiting until the fall or winter. They admitted this was kind of a moot point now that the flu has actually arrived here, but they're worried it's going to get worse in the next two months, not better. If this thing is still around in two months and still at a level 5 categorization, I am going to be incredibly surprised. Actually, the real reason they didn't want us going was not out of fear of us getting the flu, but more out of concern that we could be in the US, and the WHO would raise the alert level to 6, and we wouldn't be able to get back into Japan (I guess level 6 includes closing borders?)

Acceptance of cultural differences aside, if they had told me definitively I couldn't go home this summer, I'd've had to open up a can of whoop-ass on 'em.