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

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

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.

Japan: Robot Nation

This is a cool story, check it out.

Robot Nation

More Photos

New pictures up. Posts to follow soon!

Cherry Blossom viewing in Himeji and Yamasaki

Oh, Japan...

A new ongoing album dedicated to those little idiosyncrasies that make Japan the magical place that it is. 

Spring Break

It's spring break, and with it has come an enormous sense of relief. School is so stressful for me here, I think because I am running blindly and not getting any feedback, so I constantly feel like I'm failing and not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. But now that it's break and I don't have to be doing anything particular, I feel so much more calm. The funk and depression I was in for most of March seems to have disappeared. I've been working full time, despite the break, because I don't have enough days off left to really go anywhere, and I decided to get a big jump on the new year by doing a lot of planning and preparation before the term starts. 

I've been kind of stumped as to what I ought to do with the second living room in my house, and so far I've just kept it closed off as a kind of empty storage room. But now that I've been here 8 months (woah...) I'm really sick of the set up in my house. I hate not having a table to sit and work at. The one decent sized table in the house is in the kitchen. Back when I moved in, I tried to bring it into the living room to use as a desk, but it was too big and I couldn't get it out of the kitchen. So it kind of became a counter top for me to pile all my crap on. I'd eat all my meals at the little table on the floor in the living room, I'd do all my school work (if I had any) at the table in the living room. But the problem is that the little table on the floor is so comfortable, and I can't focus sitting there. If I'm going to be doing something where I have to focus, like working, or writing, or studying Japanese, I have to be sitting at a real table in a real chair. So, I'm redecorating! I cleaned off my kitchen table and moved it so I can actually sit at it, and that's where I'm going to eat my meals. I also took down the hideous curtains that hung in the kitchen, and I'm going to get some nice new ones. While I was sick a few weeks ago, someone came to clean up my garden. There was a little bamboo grove of sorts at the back of my house, which partially obscured the view. But the person who cleaned the garden ripped out the bamboo. So now the back of the house is exposed to the view of the houses across the rice paddy. I've been trying to open the screens more, because one of the things I love about spring is throwing open the windows and letting the natural light in. My house is so traditional, it's anything but light and airy, which is a bummer. But I'm working on it.

I've been planning on redecorating for a while, but I'm finally getting it done. I went to the home goods store Nanba to buy a desk. I actually ordered one, but then Caitlin took me to this used goods store, and there were all these really nice desks and things for WAY cheaper, so I cancelled my order at Nanba and I'm going to go get a desk there. I bought a beautiful painting of a woman wearing a kimono, apparently its an original painting (by a local or what, I don't know) but it looks old, the way the picture was mounted was not modern looking, and the frame and everything is really weathered. I hung it over where the desk is going to go.

This used store (recycle store, its called) is AMAZING. Caitlin's been talking about it for ages, but I kind of got the wrong impression of it, and didn't realize how awesome it is. It's a huge warehouse-like place, piled to the ceiling with second hand stuff. There are tables, chairs, desks, lamps, dishes and glasses of every kind, jewelry, artwork, movies, CDs, pillows, exercise equipment, mirrors, wardrobes, so much stuff and I can't even think what else, but I'll put it this way: a child with an active imagination would have the time of their life in this store. 

This has been my spring break. I come to work at 8 (or a little after, since no one's really there and there's no morning staff meeting) and I'm only supposed to stay until noon, but I've been staying until usually 2 or 3, sometimes till 4 or 5, because I'm trying to get work done. Also I'm trying to build some good credit at school by putting in the time to show that I'm not one of those ALTs who just wants to jet off and get away from school. 

Anyway, I'll post pictures of the room as soon as it's finished. Which will hopefully be soon. Right now, I'm in that phase where you start cleaning and making improvements at home, but it gets way messier before it gets better. But I'm trying not to let it bug me. It's going to be so much better once I get everything in order. 

Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor

I found this interesting story this morning. 

Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor

Meet the man who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki