My Japanese Vacation

To you Kate Koehler

2010-09-15T23:04:00.002+09:00

There you are. You. Yes you. The little girl that used to hug her dog when things went wrong. I said you had Tiger Eyes remember, when we used to eat cup ramen noodles in the high school doorway from white plastic bags? You said ramen with mustard tasted better and I couldn’t agree more. Going to Decades down on 10th Avenue when you told me to make up a “club name”, my first club. You were so smart, always understood everything in class and the fastest typer I have ever met. I could never keep up with you on AIM, MsMojoRsn, Jim Morrison and the Doors enshrined in your heart. Driving in your maroon Toyota Corolla, jamming to 2Pac songs, and making me spastic with giggles when you did crazy things...like that one time, putting on Bath&Body’s Juniper Breeze at a red light, then at the green light smearing the stearing wheel with thick white lotion as you turned. You let me borrow your car for three days and I was so scared I would crash it. I bought a car cover and covered it everyday, you know. Where did we even go in your car? Always driving, that was the best part ... I’ll never forget you, Dear Friend, rest in peace.

COLA SHOCK!

2010-09-14T22:27:00.003+09:00

I forgot just how good Coca Cola and vodka can be, especially after a long day of English corrections. Can you tell what's missing?

A: Hello.

B: Hello.

A: How are you?

B: I am fine. And you?

A: I am fine.

A: You look hard.

B: I am very hard.

A: Shall I help you?

B: Thank you.

A: Can I ask you to go to YouMe Town?

B: OK. Let's go!

They forgot to put the word STUDYING as the thing that they are doing hard. AH! Kids, please be sponges and learn; if only you knew what you were saying!

Desiderata

2010-09-07T16:28:00.001+09:00

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

AussieLand

2010-08-17T10:25:00.000+09:00

Aussie Land
My mom’s song to my youngest brother Nico, was my first ever brush with Australia:
Kooko-baby sits in the old gum tree
Merry merry king of the bush is he
Laugh Kooko-baby Laugh Kooko-baby
Fun your life must be!
This song of fun and laughter proved to a be a harbinger of Australia to the core, as I realize that every time I happened to meet an Australian before going to Australia, it was in the context of some sort of party. With their cheeky comments and quick one liners, Australians seem quite proud of their devil-may-care attitude. Australia is the most random assortment of animals, people things that I have ever encountered, and I can’t help but think it is pure luck that it ranks number 2 in the UN’s Human Development Index. For example:

1) Did you know that kangaroo means “I don’t know” in a native Aboriginal language?
2) Did you know that the capital, Canberra, was chosen because of its location between Melbourne and Sydney to pacify their I-want-to-be-the-Australian-capital feud?
3) Did you know that Australia Day is actually a celebration of boatloads of convicts arriving in Sydney (1/5 of the population is reported to have a convict ancestor)?
4) Did you know that Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world (I felt the sun was particularly strong, leaving a slight burning sensation)?
5) Last of all and my personal favorite, did you know that the first police force was a band of the most well -behaved convicts?

Roughly the size of the US with 1/14th the population, Australia has 6 GIANT states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory) and it is estimated that one in every four Australians was born overseas. Talk about melting pot, I believe that I heard every language ever spoken by man there and the diversity of the immigrants is matched by the diversity of the land. Australia is among the oldest continents in the world and therefore one of the most varied. I have heard it described as God’s way of making people laugh, with deliciously exotic-sounding animals like platypus, wallaby, wombat (not a bat), and Tasmanian devil. Australia has always been a dry land, and the native animals are well accustomed to it; kangaroos are able to go for months without drinking water at all. With 90% of the land flat and arid, it is in the death throes of supporting the non-native agriculture and erosion is continuing to eat up the belly of the country. The environment is a growing issue among Australians with the ecosystem glaringly unable to support the wannabe English countryside image, developed long ago by homesick convicts. With the introduction of those ever-breeding fuzzy bunnies and greenery terrorizing sheep, Australian non-natives have nearly succeeded in devastating their precious resources and it is estimated that since the Europeans colonized, 17 mammals have become extinct and there are more endangered animals than on any other continent. Even the “old gum tree” in the kookaburra bird song may soon become a thing of the past. The young city dwellers and die-hard rancher families are in the middle of an environmental-turned-political battle, fighting tooth and nail to strike a balance between conserving nature and maintaining the cattle-driving lifestyle that their ancestors have ever known. Water restrictions are in force and signs are everywhere, as the country is in a constant state of drought.

Baked Beans on Toast!?
In true get-over-it-and-live Australian style, despite the fact that England kicked out their ancestors, strong ties with England remain in their English-style breakfasts (spaghetti, eggs, toast and bacon, baked beans), English monarchy-honoring statues and even on their currency. Beyond breakfast, Australian staples of tea and scones, fish and chips, meat pies and wine, all have English beginnings, although the 20% immigrant population does keep foods vibrant and varied. Food prices are outrageous, as the constant lack of water forces them to import food and other goods that cannot be homegrown. We spent about $25 for just an average meal, and even grocery prices were pure robbery. Only my Australians in Japan insist that Japan is cheap, while the rest of us English-speakers disagree. That’s why I like to call them AustrALIEN ;)

AustrALIENS!
Australians have this OCD tendency to shorten everything to a cutesy name that ends in y. Like Aussie for Australians, names are Brownie (Ms Brown) brekky (breakfast) and named me Sandy (Sandoval).
I was accosted by random Australians when they heard my accent; they jumped on the chance to talk about America and Australia. American pop culture hegemony has infiltrated the rebellious Land Down Under and has left a strong, not generally positive feeling. Culturally, the news mentioned that Australians consider themselves another state of America, and America’s hot-button issues today become Australia’s tomorrow. Here is an example of a conversation that I had with a random Davy Crockett-looking character who was trying to make me laugh (Although, my Australian friends called him a tosser.) “Why can’t you Yanks speak English? For example, why do you piss in a bathtub? Well, why would you ask for a bathroom when what you want is a toilet? Why would you call it a restroom, because there’s not a bed in it? You are going to go to the toilet right? Why can’t you just call it a toilet?”
Now, I never mentioned anything to him about a restroom or a bathroom but he thought of all this on his own. This sounds harsher than it was, and he wasn’t “having a go at me” but this conversation highlights the strong, slightly jovial feeling toward America.

Aborigine Means First Inhabitant (nod to Japanese English textbooks)
While only there for two weeks, I felt the public outpouring of sensitivity towards the Aborigine. A recent prime minister apologized to the Aborigines for stealing their children and trying to raise them Western-style. This practice ended fairly recently in the 1970’s. If you want to put your fingers on the national Australian pulse, charitable feeling towards these Stolen Generations are in vogue and can be seen in art, news and homegrown movies, such as Australia and Bran Nue Dae.

Karucha Shoku aka Culture Shock
Although Australia is not my world, in a way, it is more my world than Japan. It was so nice to be in a reverse situation where I understood everything that was being spoken and they didn’t. I was the de facto translator throughout the trip, and didn’t realize how much Japanese I could speak. I was quite proud when the Australian teachers, thinking I was Japanese, praised my American-sounding English. Whoo hoo! I studied English my whole life.

My Top Ten List of All Things Culture-Shocking to the Japanese
These things were a never-ending source of entertainment for me.
10) Seeing the brightly decorated classrooms instead of the drab gray of dilapidated schools.
9) Seeing their surprised reactions to “Western-sized” portions and people. I am so glad that no one really understood Japanese, because the continuous references to size would be very rude in English-speaking culture.
8) Seeing their reaction to teachers drinking coffee, eating cake and having relaxed conversations in the lounge, instead of always being in a mad dash to pretend like they’re busy.
7) Seeing Australians’ relaxed custom of greeting each other and seeming lack of authority. Australian teachers don’t force students to scream good morning. A smile in the eyes, a friendly wave, or a “hey” is also considered a greeting, and standing on ceremony with “good afternoon’s”, and “you must be tired’s” was echoingly unheard.
6) Seeing an all school meeting with no exaggerated “Opening of the Ceremony” Ceremony and “Closing of the Ceremony” Ceremony, no school song and no bowing, didn’t allow them to know exactly when the ceremony ended and began, or how it was to be participated in.
5) Driving a car where the speeds are much higher was alarming for them and seeing them confusingly driving through roundabouts was alarming for me.
4) Seeing their reaction to wine at lunch, and driving after a dinner drink was shocking. I had forgotten that in other countries it’s ok to drink a little and drive.
3) Seeing the students taste freedom and watch them begin to rebel against the strict Japanese-style of management by the end of the 2 weeks. For example, the Japanese teacher ordered the students to mingle and waited for the same order from the Australian teachers, who instead waited for them to do it naturally.
2) The lack of a Japanese onsen (hot spring) was a never-ending complaint. A day spa with massages and wine does not equal a naked Japanese onsen.
1) Straddling the divide of cultural understanding, I was thrilled to see an Australian teacher try to get the Japanese to “socialize” by being chatty. Her very chattiness made her seem lonely to the Japanese, and their lack of chatter made them seem lonely to the Australian.

Goodbye

2010-08-11T13:22:00.003+09:00

Goodbye. Especially to you, friends leaving Japan. I will miss you more than you know. It's just a dream, it seems so unreal, how can time have flown by so quickly? And yet it was an eternity. I don't feel sad, oddly numb... now slightly alarmed at my eyes, swelling and blurry and the deep shuddering breaths. My nose is starting to run. What can this be? How strange and annoying that I can't control my own body. But I have seen this reaction before in people that have been stung by bees. It has got to be an allergy. Clearly, I am allergic to goodbye. When I hear it, I become weary and the slightest touch of it makes me shudder. The smell of it is a pungent onion that assaults my eyes and nose and the taste of it is poison to my thoughts. It boldly infiltrates my defenses and sets a rebellion against my emotional authority. If I happen to come in contact with goodbye, I must immediately take a dose of anti-inflammatory medicine so that I can quickly control the effect. What is this medicine exactly? I will tell you a secret I learned long ago: the only medicine that works with goodbye is hello.

Tests tests tests

2010-07-18T17:39:00.002+09:00

OK ok. I admit it. I am procrastinating.... on studying for yet another test. Is it just me, or does it seem like life is all about tests? I'm serious. Especially since I've been to Japan. There's the daily life skills tests [not an actual test ;) ], the Japanese Language Proficiency tests and ever present kanji tests, violin songs to be mastered and taiko drum levels to be passed, and now I am studying for the GMAT test that I will take in October. I really am in a country of test takers. What is all this testing for? Will it make me a better Japanese speaker, violin player, taiko drummer and b-school student? I don't know. But I know if I pass these tests, everyone else will think so. And....that's what matters....right?

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-06T11:43:00.000+09:00

Happy 4th of July! I made guacamole burgers for a Canadian and a South African. They stamped me with a seal of approval, because as a maker of good hamburgers, I must be American. How much do you know about America?

1) How many flags are flown over Washington DC on July 4th?
2) How many stripes are on the flag and what do they represent?
3) How many people are in the US now?
4) What two famous forefathers died on Independence Day?
5) How many men signed the Declaration of Independence?
6) When was the Declaration of Independence actually passed?
7) Who sewed the first American flag?
8) How many millions of hot dogs are eaten on the 4th of July?
9) How many millions of people lived in America in 1776?
10) When was the first Independence Day actually celebrated?

1)1200 2)13 original colonies 3) 306 million 4)Thomas Jefferson and John Adams 5)56 6) July 2nd 7)Betsy Ross 8)155 million 9)2.5 million 10)July 4, 1777

What is up with Colorado?

2010-07-06T10:14:00.000+09:00

What is up with Colorado? I love my state and all but I feel like all I hear about are crazy people. I guess that’s all that there is in the news. But we certainly have our share of people that are well known in the world.
1. A guy who went to Afghanistan to shoot Osama Bin Laden
2. A woman who tried to be a terrorist
3. The Air Balloon Hoax
4. The shoe bomber
5. The church murders
6. Jon Benet murder
7. Columbine shootings
8. Approving marijuana$43 million slot machine mistake

Waste of Time?

2010-07-06T10:13:00.000+09:00

The kids here live at school, I am not kidding, they might as well sleep here. You know all the time kids spend at school, even on Saturdays, right? Well, I can attest that half the things they do, I would consider a waste of time. Moral classes, constant school-wide meetings, chorus and sports contests that take weeks of practice on school days. School is like summer camp with subjects. The teachers are expected to entertain the kids almost every waking hour. When they go home, there is no time to do anything except attend cram school for a few hours, eat dinner at 9 pm with the family and maybe study. No wonder there is low crime and no kids wandering around thinking of stupid things to do. They are together almost every waking hour being “productive”. I think they are in school way too much, BUT if they weren’t in school they would just be latchkey kids because their parents are work WAY too much. So, in the end perhaps it’s better for them to be at school playing, than at home doing God-knows-what.

Moral Classes

2010-07-06T10:12:00.000+09:00

Jen always says, “Japan is giving me morals.” I have to agree with her, people are so upright here; it puts America to shame, I am sorry to say. My conclusion is all those moral classes the kids have to take that seem ridiculous, must actually work. I had the chance to observe a moral class one day, when my school hosted an annual all county “teachers come and observe our school” type day. One girl stood up and wrote an essay about how she grew up, how this made her the tough girl that she is, and how she felt about her class where she had no friends. She talked about how people bullied her and how upset it made her for people to call her names. Afterwards the class was dead silent, for about 10-15 minutes while the kids stared at their desks and all of the 30 or so observant teachers watched them and waited. Finally, the class leader stood up and said, I don’t feel that way towards you, and neither does anyone else I think. Finally, 10 long minutes of waiting, 2 more kids stand up, and finally I felt the kids all staring at one particular girl. As a Westerner, I felt like the silence was deafening and would have done almost anything to just end the long minutes of silence, like make them write or ask questions or something, ANYTHING. Standing for 30 minutes of silence would test ANYONE’S patience. But everyone was silent and waiting patiently sent the kids a message that we were just going to wait until they were ready. Many girls were crying. It took the ENTIRE 50 minute class to resolve an issue, but the teachers were patient enough to just sit there and wait for the kids to speak. I was shocked when the bully girl finally stood up and talked. The two girls became best friends after that. I was glad that I got to observe the powerful way that Japanese style moral classes can work.

Pay It Forward is from Japan

2010-05-24T16:52:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I was given a huge bag of about 25 pieces of bakery assorted bread. I can’t believe how generous people are! I am constantly getting carrots (I live in a town famous for carrot breeding), vegetables, candy, bread and chocolate. I have been given chopsticks, face towels, knick-knacks, blankets and snacks. This is like an everyday thing; I am not kidding. The day before I was given a bottle of wine. The day before I was given a collection of manga to read. I could probably name something everyday. When Nico was here, I gave him the loot (chocolate, bread, candy, coffee, cookies) that I couldn’t eat for lent. He thought it was incredible. I still have a couple boxes of candy/chocolate that I couldn’t eat. I also constantly giving things away, it’s catchy. Have you seen Pay It Forward? I think Japan made that movie.

Polite Tourette’s

2010-05-24T11:32:00.000+09:00

I know this isn’t anything new, but I have to say it anyway. Politeness is annoying. Beyond the initial saying of it, I try to bow politely to the constant interruption of excessive good mornings, good jobs and excuse me’s. The final straw came when someone came up behind me, while I was running on the treadmill, and gave the standard, “You must be tired” (common greeting) and I had to grab the bar to respond almost tumbling off. I wanted to hit him. WHO does that?! Can’t you see I’m running here? I can greet you when I come into the gym and when I leave, other than that, stop circulating and greeting me every hour! Seriously! Suddenly, the truth hit me like a pack of sumo’s: it’s a massive outbreak of Tourette’s Syndrome. People just get this irresistible tic to constantly use the 3 standard greetings and simply can’t help it. It has got to be said at least once an hour. Now that I understand, that makes things so much easier for me to accept. How can I blame people when it’s simply an automatic reflex?

My first taiko performance!

2010-05-15T20:52:00.000+09:00

China

2010-05-10T14:25:00.005+09:00

If I could describe China in two words, it would be grubby exhilarating. (If I could describe Japan, it would be antibacterial polite). Grubby for the grime and excited pushiness of people, exhilarating because things are changing faster than China’s 90 kph taxi rides. I am not sure what exactly I expected to see there, except hungry children, lots of red, expensive tea, face masks and bicycles. China has always been a source of conflicting images in my mind; Tiananmen Square mixed with Kung Fu movies and Mulan taught me that communism doesn’t work, family and honor are important, beads of jade are for beauty and crickets bring good luck. I toured 4 important cities, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi’an and Beijing, the last 3 of which were ancient capitals of China and each of which has major cultural influences. With that perspective, I will try to scratch the surface of the hidden dragon that is China (while singing Mulan).

For a long time we've

been marching off to battle
In a country slightly smaller than the US, with four times the population it’s no wonder that pollution is such a problem. The constant Matrix-looking gray sky was a grim reminder of the impurities I was inhaling (which has improved recently because of the Expo and Olympics). Students were half-jokingly running for cover when it rained because they were convinced it was acidic. The only blue sky I saw for the entire 2 weeks was in Beijing for one day. In an industrializing country, that is hardly surprising and I expect it will get worse before it gets better. Although, apparently the air used to leave a burning sensation in people’s lungs before the government clamped down hard. I saw hardly any face masks which was surprising considering Japan’s obsession with them (I think face masks are actually considered an accessory now, with all the new colors and patterns that keep showing up).

In our thundering herd

We feel a lot like cattle
The Ant Tribe is the generation of 80’s born non-brand-name university graduates stuck in a country that’s not ready for their talent. Hundreds of thousands of these hungry college graduates are holed up in bathtub size apartments trying to look for an ever-elusive job that suits their education level. Intelligent people swarming together restlessly with nothing to do sounds like a recipe for disaster/mass movement to me. Hopefully, China will PEACEFULLY solve the problem they created (by mandating a 30% university enrollment target in a giant social experiment to boost the Chinese economy). Churning out college graduates does not create more jobs, just like creating a product does not guarantee it will sell.

Like the pounding beat

Our aching feet aren't

easy to ignore
I was shocked at how active everyone is; I believe I saw all 1.3 billion people outside taking up every square inch of space (about half of Chinese are urbanized), exercising in old-people parks (I am not kidding, there were old people exercise machines in the parks), ballroom dancing, playing cards, singing karaoke, and a variety of group sports activities. In every park or open area I happened upon, gray heads were jumping around healthily, crowding out parent-toting children. People were very friendly and one old man even took me for a tango.

Hey, think of instead

A girl worth fighting for
I have never heard so many aphorisms that seem commonly used in everyday language. I learned many useful things in China, such as, “Don’t treat a tiger like Hello Kitty” or “Two tigers can’t occupy one mountain.” I learned that girls should drink soymilk everyday and guys should hold their purses. I have never seen so many lovey-dovey couples holding hands, carrying matching key chains, clothing and accessories at every tourist destination. There are 37 million more males than females, and believe me, the girls here know it and are working it. Case in point, there is even a popular cartoon (Xi yan yan) where a wife, wearing a queen’s crown constantly hits her loving husband with a pan, while he tries to do everything to make her happy. I learned that he is the perfect husband in China. It is a girl’s world, across the ocean from JapanManLand , as long as you don’t expect something too crazy, like a serious career. In China, I have been told that there are 3 kinds of people in the world; men, women and female doctors. Nonetheless, the women I encountered were very clever, and expressed their opinions well, which should be expected from Ant Tribe members.

I've a girl back home who's

unlike any other

Yeah, the only girl who'd

love him is his mother
I have never seen such huge-but-not-necessarily-fat babies, giant bundles of clothing and meat. Whatever do they feed you?! I don’t think I could hold one of those huge bundles of child; like a mini-Michelin man in blankets. Due to the One-Child Policy enacted in the 1979, children have never been such a source of pride. These little emperors can be found ordering parents around, who dote on their every whim. When I was there, a mini baby boom explosion replaced earthquake-dead elder siblings (70,000 people died in the Sichuan quake). Interesting to note that several men from all over the country were killing elementary schoolchildren in revenge to society, so there were armed guards at every school.

I couldn't care less what she'll

wear or what she looks like
8% of China is composed of 55 recognized minorities to which the One Child policy does not apply. These Middle-Eastern beautiful mixtures of Chinese have an unsavory reputation among Han Chinese, due to their poorer western economy and higher crime rate.

It all depends on what

she cooks like

Beef, pork, chicken

Mmm
I have never liked the greasy Chinese food that my brothers die for in Colorado. “Buck a scoop” of unknown meat has never appealed to me, and the sauces at restaurants have always turned me off. I was excited to learn that the food, although still greasy, was amazing. Every morning I drank a huge bowl of soymilk, yogurt-fruit drinks and a variety noodles and fried breads. People also eat tofu, congees (oatmealish) and other vegetabl-y things for breakfast that don’t vary much from any other meal. As I got my warm milk in the warped bowls down Bird Flu Alley, I tried to ignore a red chile floating in my milk from a prior tofu/chile eating customer. What made food more exciting was the fact that I really might get sick.. Coming from Japantibacterial, it made me feel daring and encouraged my appetite. At the airport, Jen and I were dying for Burger King’s Croissanwich (Japan doesn’t have Burger King) and were shocked to learn that there was no breakfast menu. As far as other meals, I particularly enjoyed Chinese dumplings, Peking duck (a bit greasy but made much better by tortilla-ish wraps), and handmade noodles (Did you know noodles can be grated like cheese from a massive hunk of noodle?). My biggest dare was (drum roll please) bullfrog, which tasted like slimy chicken (I spit it out at first in revulsion, until I reconciled my mind to the idea); I must admit I didn’t like it that much. I wasn’t that concerned over the guts, feet and other slimy sea critters on the menu as they are a favorite in Japan as well. As to other meats, I know what you’re going to ask, and no, I didn’t encounter dog or cat on the menu. Although, I did read in China Daily that rat is the new favorite, to the dismay of Chinese health experts. Oh, the price to be exotic!

My girl will think I have no faults

That I'm a major find
At a stated GDP of $6,600 PPP (who really knows, many things are so under the table) you can survive on about $1.50 a day on street food (ranging from 1-5 yuan or 15 – 75 cents). Clothing was about 100-250 yuan in Chinese brand stores ($15) and much more expensive at Western brand stores. The problem with buying Western name brand products is that no one thinks it is real, and even if the store claims it is real, it may not be. In fact, some vendors claim it doesn’t matter as long as you can’t tell; you’re still paying for the brand name look. It leaves no incentive to buy a real Louis Vuitton bag, since every shady man with a small briefcase is selling them along with Rolex watches. If you DO have the money to buy the real thing, you will pay more than you would pay in the US. Why? I don’t know maybe add-on fees in a country that is known for stealing ideas. Where there is plentiful labor, sewing machines and hungry mouths, there is opportunity and necessity is the mother of invention. There was a major cd/dvd crackdown when I left and you can’t help feeling sorry for the desperate people who get their backpacks of fake Terracotta warriors taken away by rough guards.

How 'bout a girl who's got a brain

Who always speaks her mind?

Nah!
As you know, I generally don’t care overmuch about tourist sites, but China has quite a wealth of amazing sites.
In Shanghai, I saw Yuyuan garden and the Expo pavilion area (the Expo wasn’t open yet). We took the Magnetic Levitation train (Maglev) to Nanjing, which took about 20 minutes going 300 kph.
In Nanjing, Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum, Confucius Temple, Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing Massacre Museum. In Xi’an, the Terracotta Warriors, Big Goose Pagoda, Big Mosque and City Wall.
In Beijing, I saw the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Tea City, Tiananman Square, Pearl Market, Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, the Great Wall, acrobat show and the Forbidden City.
I think most of the buildings were the same thing over and over. I felt myself asking if that was the same palace I had just visited before with the same 2 royal colors, red and yellow, and pied piper procession of 9 animals on the rooftops (only the emperor can have that many). The Forbidden City should stay forbidden, since there is nothing to see anyway that you can’t see after peaking inside for 5 seconds. I know I know, it is a cultural iconic thing and blah blah, but I swear it was like walking into one of those mirrors that have the same image that goes on and on forever. Watch The Last Emperor and you will see the best of the Forbidden City. The gardens and architecture in southern China are gorgeous and I enjoyed their 3D effect. I loved riding tandem on a bike down the ancient Xi’an City Wall and getting a boat stuck in weeds in front of yelling fisherman in Nanjing. My favorite part was hanging out and mixing with the locals who were vivid and giddy with the expected rise of income and prestige of their country.

What do we want?

A girl worth fighting for!

Thai LAND!

2010-04-24T06:58:00.003+09:00

When I heard about the BIGGEST WATERFIGHT IN THE WORLD, in Thailand during Thai New Year (called Songkran) I knew it was fate. The Songkran (New Year) water fights began as a blessing, a sprinkling of water from older people to younger people, and somehow in the sweltering 100 degree temperature, morphed into a giant 3-day waterfight. Talk about stamina. Thousands of people in the streets running around with super soakers and throwing buckets of undrinkable water at each other FOR THREE DAYS sent a shiver up my spine; even the thought of having to throw toilet paper in the trash couldn’t stop me. One full day turned out to be plenty of water fight for us, and getting soaked within minutes of leaving our tour van or hotel made the trip doubly exciting. You never knew when you were going to get hit, and EVERYONE was fair game. People were driving around with umbrellas and full plastic suits. Even in the countryside, far away on our all-day “elephant / orchid farm/ ox-cart/ long-neck village women” excursion, we were hit with water. My passport has water/ink stains everywhere and I had to take immense pains to dry it and squish into its former shape. I guess that’s what I get for not using a brand name Ziploc bag! Anyhow, I should give some Thai cultural background before I continue.

Thailand, formerly Siam, is a country that I could only imagine from seeing movies like, “The King and I” and “Brokedown Palace”. I wasn’t too sure about what was there exactly, besides exotic animals, glittery buildings, illicit drugs, underage prostitutes, and fabulous reviews from other travelers. Other than being world-famous for silk and elephants, Thailand also holds the Guinness Record for the world’s longest place name: the capital, Bangkok’s full name is (drumroll please): “The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarma".

There is only a 2-hour difference between Japan and Thailand, which I discovered on the first day. I got up, bright and scruffy, at 6:30am, got down to the dim lobby, filled with attendants sleeping on the hotel couches. I was really excited to eat breakfast, whereupon I was informed that it was only 4:30 am! This made me instantly tired, but I decided to read a little, before I had to wake up the girls to let me back in the room (They key needs to be put in a special slot to operate the lights, so I thought it best to leave it in the room). I was chomping at the bit to use Thai, having downloaded Thai dictionaries, podcasts and travel phrases, but alas they didn’t understand me unless I spoke English! I think they don’t expect people to try at all and were genuinely surprised when someone tries to speak to them in Thai. It was good to have the map and some directions printed out in Thai since they couldn’t really understand English, only basic phrases and bargaining. A fair amount can speak at length about their specific trade interest (our elephant driver could answer “What’s the elephant’s name?” but when I asked “Where are you from?” he had absolutely no idea)

There are two airports in Bangkok one for international and one for local (same as Japan), so it is important to pay attention exactly which one you need to be at. The baht is their currency (worth 33 times less than the dollar – aka multiply by 3 and take off 2 zero’s, so 300 baht is $9). So it makes it easy to think you’re spending less than you actually are. It’s relatively easy to find transportation that can be bargained down (or up, depending on how good you are at bargaining) as everyone wants to drive tourists in order to earn a little extra under the table. It cost about 200 baht for the 1/2 drive to our hotel. Tuk Tuks (Taxi’s with a Thai twist- resemble golf carts) were a bit more expensive, but I found the most entertaining form of travel The hotel people understood English and were able to speak quite fluently. All in all, I spent about 320,000 yen, which is about $330 and was able to get my eyelashes curled (300 baht), buy gifts and alcohol, eat at expensive places (for Thailand), go on an all-day tour (900 baht) and all transportation costs. If I didn’t buy gifts or go to expensive places (Pizza Hut was a whopping 350 baht for a medium pizza – Jenn REALLY wanted non-Japanese pizza), I could do a week on 200,000 yen ($210) easy. The normal price range for food is 50 – 100 baht.

Thailanders adore their king and his face plastered all over the place, in taxis, on bridges and even fire hydrants! The beloved king has been instrumental in bringing the boiling political environment down to a simmer throughout his 63-year reign (the world’s longest serving monarch). The red-shirt protestors were very tame when I saw them, and the common working Thais that I encountered seemed very supportive of them. The clashes with the government are about as peaceful as Thailand can make them (being dependent on tourism) and the gov’t closed the surrounding businesses/malls early and well before any government clashes. In general, the Red Shirts (common working people) support a more socialist government that was elected and ousted by the Yellow Shirts (business owners and supporters of the royal family), a few years ago. Red Shirts want fresh elections and some want the old government back. Both types of Shirts have thousands of followers, and though this year the Red Shirts took over a parliament building and TV station, there have been surprisingly few deaths and injuries. The Red Shirts` deadly clash last year taught them a few lessons and this year they are much more organized. When I was there, the government clashes were limited to certain areas and both sides tended to avoid tourists, although richer areas have been blockaded by the Red Shirts costing those businesses thousands as the weeks drag on. Thailand was operating in a state of emergency when I was there, and as the weeks drag on without a resolution, the tension and violence has been escalating. Both Shirts are determined to have their say in the Thai government, and I think a bigger clash between the two Shirts is inevitable.

Political tension notwithstanding, Thai people were very friendly, it’s not called the Land of Smiles for nothing, although I must admit that nothing can compare to Japanese service. People are very pushy for you to help them by purchasing their wares and I found it hard to refuse them, considering they get by on about $8,600 (PPP) per year. Bargaining is a national pastime, for example, when a taxi driver didn’t turn on his meter, I started to get out, but when he dropped the price (which was cheap either way) and said, “Please help me” I couldn’t resist his plea. We got caught up in about 5 different scams while we were there, although we were too cautious (and on an economy budget) to get taken by any, although we didn’t realize they were scams at first.

Scams in Thailand are very well planned and oiled machines, organized to take thousands of dollars from tourists in gem, silk and other various scams. These complicated schemes are massive (Burmese) gangster-related operations. Here is how they did it to us (I felt like I was in a Mario videogame trying to evade things that wanted to take one of my lives. Mario background music was in my head the whole time)

1) Smooth-talking Thai picked us up en route to a popular tourist destination and offered us a really cheap Tuk Tuk Thai taxi (golf cart- ish) ride.

2) Told us that the site that we were going to, is being cleaned for Thai New Year and they would take us to 3 other tourist sites, and including the Lucky Buddha (etc) site for a couple of hours til it was done being cleaned.

3) Convinced us that although the price is abnormally low, the gov’t is compensating them in some way to help tourism. Got one of his henchmen to take us in a Tuk Tuk immediately.

4) At the temple, an unknown VERY friendly person approached us, spoke very good English and told us the best place in Thailand to buy tailored suits. (I have read that depending on the situation, gem scammers will come and talk to you about the safest place to buy Thai gems.)

5) On the way to the next tourist destination, we got taken to the same tailor shop that the guy had mentioned, although we had said nothing to him about it. (We saw one Red Shirt blockade where they waved and smiled at us. They seemed very friendly.)

6) They tried to pressure us into buying and using words like government authorized, etc.

7) We were taken to the next tailor shop which was a little bit more upscale, where our Tuk Tuk driver told us that he gets gas coupons for every shop that he goes to, so he said we could go in and look around for a few minutes then come back out. We consented, came out then he took us to another tourist site.

8) We told him no more tailor shops, so he said bargained with us for just one gem shop, which we didn’t mind, we had time to kill before the water fights and it was interesting to see Thailand at 100 miles an hour in a golf cart (Tuk Tuk)

9) We went to a very well-organized, nice looking gem export center where we were greeted by people in suits, given free drinks and convinced of the precious stones’ value and authenticity (usually low quality stones or colored glass). There were workers sitting in the front cutting the gems to show us. We didn’t buy anything.

(Start Mario-fighting-the-dragon-at-the-end music)

10) Then we were driven unwillingly to a tailor shop, where the salesperson waved us away (I don’t know why but he looked upset) then finally back to the castle.

11) As soon as we exited the tuktuk, birdseed materialized on my crossed arms and I turned to see Jen had 3 bags somehow, we were yelled at to feed the pigeons. Even knowing this was a money scam or take-my-purse-and-run scam, I was confused about what to do with the birdseed and stood there for a time. They wouldn’t accept the seeds back and dirty pigeons were flying everywhere. I left the birdseed on a gate by the pigeons. I would have refused to feed pigeons even if the birdseed was free!! Freaking pigeons, I hate them!

12) Then, we were approached by more scammers who said we didn’t have appropriate attire for the castle and wanted us to buy their long skirts. Although they were correct about our short-pants being inappropriate, we refused them and rented the free skirts that the castle provided.

13) I bargained down postcards from $9 to $1.50 and some bottles of water!! YAY, I mastered a skill to get out alive!

13) Game Over! We barely escaped! We made it to the Castle! (victory music)

Handkerchief god

2010-03-24T10:13:00.002+09:00

There is a huge 10-foot poster, recently hung, that reads “Zero Handkerchiefs Forgotten”। One of the teachers is obsessed with handkerchiefs. Every morning he takes it upon himself to ask all the homeroom teachers how many students brought handkerchiefs to school. Then, when he goes around congratulating the teachers and creating a team atmosphere, where they say things like “We did it!” and give each other high 5’s. I have already talked about the immense chart that is hanging up in the school, depicting the amount of students bringing handkerchiefs to school. It’s sad to say, but my school isn’t the greatest at garnering prizes. Perhaps this is an attempt to create chances for the students to be good at something! Bring a handkerchief to school, and you’re an automatic winner. It’s that easy. It makes me want to create a chart for carrying water bottles to school. That way, everyone can be a double winner! But I have to admit; I have a handkerchief in my desk that I use to appease the Handkerchief god. I actually do use it, though, every time I wash my hands. Otherwise I would have to wipe my hands on my clothes or air dry them since there are no towels or hand dryers. I told the students that, in America, we don’t carry handkerchiefs around. WAHHHH! Their look of disbelief was mixed with disgust and fascination. It left me feeling quite gleeful. Yes, that’s right, I like to blow your minds. Take that accepted cultural norms!

Eel Pie

2010-03-24T09:10:00.001+09:00

I am eating “Eel Pie – a snack for nights” right now. I am not kidding. It sounds disgusting, but it is so good. Contrary to their slimy, black, snake-like appearance, they are actually quite sweet. Kind of like some people that I know.

King of Pop

2010-03-24T09:08:00.000+09:00

After the 2nd year girls finished their team dances, the principal went up to give a speech about it. He mentioned how he saw some definite Michael Jackson moves, and as the students gave their negative opinion, he looked at me to confirm that indeed I saw it too. Alas, I saw nothing Michael Jackson and everything J-Pop (Japanese Pop) style. I had to agree with the students. He just couldn’t understand the difference. But as I sat there, I reasoned to myself. One could say that Michael Jackson, being the King of Pop, introduced the concept of pop, as well as many dance/song elements still used today. So in that sense, all pop is indicative of Michael. Therefore, even J-pop has some Michael in it. As I came to this conclusion, the principal asked me again as we entered the teacher’s room, “Right, right? You saw it too.” “Hmm, yes”, I answered, “Just a little.” I am ok with attributing all pop to a legend. He must walk around seeing Michael Jackson everywhere J-Pop is, and you know, perhaps that’s how it should be.

Bread Crust

2010-03-01T15:14:00.001+09:00

I really like bread ears. I especially like tearing the ears off my bread and dipping it in my soup. Yummy. I like it much more than I like corn ears. Bread ears sounds so much better in Japan that crust sounds in America. Give me a bread ear over a bread crust any day. Just thought you should know.

Survivor

2010-03-01T14:46:00.000+09:00

Recently I was at a party, where all the Westerners were sitting around talking, and we didn’t even realize the two Japanese girls had taken the small circular cake and somehow managed to cut into 14 equal pieces. It was about an hour before we realized they were measuring sizes and comparing number of fruits on the cake. I pondered their reasoning in semi-shock, considering the depth of their sense of fairness. What is fair to you? I think fairness is a balance that does not equal sameness, but “levels the playing field” to create equality. I would take any piece that looked generally the same. But in Japan, fairness means exactitude. Everyone is more or less that same as far as background features and growing up. Students must have similar haircuts, uniforms, bags, shoes, gloves, etc etc. There is a chart to determine what students should look like. I am not kidding. There are many examples of what people would consider fair here. Children are taught in the same manner, no matter whether they are very smart or lived in an English-speaking country or are slow learners. It doesn’t matter; it must be fair. Teachers must switch schools every few years, to give everyone a chance with all good teachers. If someone fails a grade level, they move on anyway, because they had the same chance as everyone else. A teacher was forgotten in the food division at school lunchtime and 3 ran to get a bowl and wash it and ran around trying to make sure they got an equal share. In the classroom when one team wins, and gets a prize and the other team gets very upset because somehow it’s not fair to them. Why should only half the class win prizes when they all tried hard? A win for one side is a win for the other and that’s what they’re taught since kindergarten. All for One and One for All. When one person in the class doesn’t do their homework, the entire class has to write another page. So that’s how 127 million people survive on an island the size of California, with a population density near India’s (50% of the people live on 2% of the land). Try to be exactly fair in every way. Yes indeed, the nail that sticks out must get hammered down here, or there wouldn’t be enough room for the stuck-out nails. Sticking out would create an unhinged, unequal society. This small island chooses to survive through what is socially considered fair as they have for thousands of years. And they continue to do so, with 90% of the population in the middle class. Whether or not you choose to work hard or play hard, you are part of this society, and as such, you deserve an equal piece of cake. Hmm…I don’t necessarily agree…but, I don’t necessarily disagree with sharing my hard-won cake…Now that I think about it, 1% of America is eating 90% of the cake, so perhaps the Japanese sameness is the only way to ensure equality, starting with something as simple as splitting the fruit.

More Apples Please

2010-03-01T13:39:00.001+09:00

I am officially an iWhore, or so Nico says, since I bought an iPhone this weekend. But you know what, I am proud to be an iWhore, if it means I can make movies with my Apple’s, download music, use Skype, free Japanese dictionaries, games, navigation and never-ending free applications. My iPhone can be my TV remote control, remote video player, violin tuner and basically anything small and electronic that I need. What can your phone do? I am sorry that Apple is so awesome and makes excellent products that everyone wants to buy. I am sorry that you’re against Steve Jobs, and Apple’s incompatibility with anything but itself. That’s how smart businesses work, buddy. I am sorry if you don’t want one of the best inventions ever, that is useful, lightweight, and inevitable. So stop being all anti-majority and be an iWhore and be proud of it, all you Nico-think-alikes. And by the way, Nico bought an iPhone the next day. And that’s that.

Japanese Soup

2010-03-01T12:11:00.000+09:00

I have a cool idea. You know alphabet soup that kids used to use to remember the alphabet. Someone should make kanji soup so that we can play with it and make kanji combos. Or maybe hiragana/katakana soup so that we can play with that too. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Any takers?

Mondegreens

2010-03-01T12:10:00.000+09:00

My favorite mondegreen of the day: let’s communicake! Yum, how about chocolate communicake and milk. Itadakimasu!

My name

2010-03-01T11:39:00.000+09:00

Nico spells his name in kanji like this: 光日“にこ”. It means sunlight. I haven’t figured out how to spell my name, hmm, what do you think? I can’t decide on a story. My name is too long to have something easy like sunlight. I need to have a story with my name using the following phonetic definitions.

ka か
flower/mosquito
beautiful/excellent
fire

san　さん
3/mountain/childbirth
praise/tribute

do　ど
earth/dirt
great effort/diligent

ra　ら
naked/net/gauze/silk/compass

For example, my host sister came up with this story, [3 mosquitos on a mountain bit me because I was naked on the dirt.] I have to choose a story so I can choose the kanji character that I use:

I am diligently using a compass on fire mountain (I live in fire country). Lost as usual.
I am making a great effort to catch 3 mosquitoes with a net.
Beautiful flowers grew out of the earth and I tied them with silk.
A mosquito gave birth in the dirt and I crushed them with my compass. I had a beautiful childbirth on the earth and wrapped it in gauze.

Terrible Twos

2010-02-11T12:21:00.000+09:00

I just taught 2 and 3 year olds today. Can they even talk? I wondered as I walked into the classroom. Apparently they can, quite well, like, they won't shutup. But I LOVED THEM for an hour. It was great. They are so entertained doing the same things over and over again. I don't know that they learned English but they had a blast and were able to follow directions well in a different language. I was like a huge stuffed animal for an hour. They wiped their faces all over me and jumped on me and poked/petted me everywhere. It was nice to come home, change my germ-infested clothes, and remember their cute little faces from far far away :)

Nico Wa Petto

2010-02-01T14:20:00.000+09:00

Nico walked into my entrance area, where I have a large reed hanging from my wall, and asked me if I roll a lot of sushi with it. It took me awhile to catch that one. It does indeed look like a giant sushi roller. I forgot how humorous youngest children can be, no matter how old they are. It’s so hard to refuse this kid anything. Was I always this much of a pushover? But he’s my pet, I decided, and I really don’t mind at all. The fact that I don’t mind doing things I never would have done at home surprises me. So I wash his clothes, do the dishes and make him dinner and coffee. I hang up his rolled clothes he constantly tosses on my clean tatami mats and hang them up where I directed him. I ask him to make something, half-joking and half-wondering what he can make, where he beams and comes up with a peanut butter sandwich and some chips he conned me into buying. He wants to know where I keep all the snacks and we need more milk and Kool-aid and ice cream. But I am enjoying every second of it. I am excited to show him my mad cooking skills and watch him greedily chomp down every bit of food I make. How much bread can a person eat? I like badgering him into studying Japanese while knowing half the time he’s surfing the internet. Reminding him to take his shoes off at the door, making him learn to eat with chopsticks. Every night he gives me a report on how making friends is coming along and what he explored that day. I feel like a 10 year old with a puppy. Who knew that I could be domesticated? I never would have guessed in a million zillion years. Damn you, Japan!

Catch

2010-01-28T15:01:00.000+09:00

Shizen. This word materializes out of the blue. It sounds familiar, but as I say it I am not sure what it means only that my brain came up with that word. Yes, they understood me! Nado. I am not sure at all, but my brain throws a ball at me again unexpectedly, so I catch it and run. Yes, again, wherever did I learn that?! Sometimes, it throws a soccer ball in a basketball game, or a baseball in a volleyball game. But it’s starting to throw them faster and more reliably without deep thought. Keep coming, words, I am finally off the bleachers and in the heat of the game!

NameTag

2010-01-28T10:09:00.000+09:00

I walk into the anteroom, open my shoe cupboard and wonder, how many germs do my inside shoes pick up from touching my mud-ridden outside shoes? They touch the same surface everyday! As I step onto the “clean board”, I see a shoe cupboard nametag on the ground. Something…shi…ba….Ah! Hoshiba. Ground. I see the label staring up at me. Perfect label for the ground. But that’s not really what this name means. This name is a teacher that left recently. I don’t understand why or if she will be back. I didn’t really know her, except to watch perplexed as she became increasingly stressed, an enigma hidden by her frazzled hair, an influenza mask and bulky white coat. Can Home Economics really be so stressful? I start to walk away, but the nametag is forlorn, sitting there waiting. Who will remember it? Who even cares? Suddenly, I pick it up and stuff it in my pocket, half-surprised by the vehemence of my actions. I can’t allow it to stay where it is. No one’s name should be trampled on the ground. I consider this name throughout the day. Finally, I say goodbye and fervently wish it well. It’s no longer in my hands.

2010 and such

2010-01-13T23:30:00.003+09:00

Wow. I just realized it's 2010. When did that happen! I'm pretty sure everyone has it wrong. It is still 2008. Still the year that I left the US. I'm still on 2008, even though I write 2010 on the blackboard at school, like I'm writing it as an example of what it would look like if it truly was 2010. But it's not, I tell you. It's not because there is no time here, no year, no date. Time is nothing but seasons now, winter yielding to spring yielding to summer and eventually that golden sip of fall. Time is immeasurable in anything but several months and years. I am static somehow. The world stopped and I am living in eternity now in this present moment. I always knew measuring time was a gimmick. I told you so many many times, remember? It's all in your head, I told everyone who would listen. But now it's not in mine and I want it back in there. How did it come out?

I didn't see a ball drop for two years. I didn't sing Auld Lang Syne. I didn't hear fireworks or drink champagne. I didn't kiss people or feel the shivering crowd bellow in excitement. There were no annoying horns or cheap plastic cups on floors or colored confetti.

Therefore, it didn't happen. 2010 is in your world. I will have to go back to your world someday, but for now, New Year's decided to take a hiatus.

Dancing Pandas

2010-01-06T13:56:00.001+09:00

Foreigner wanna-be’s who used to be foreign before they were in Japan for half their life and now act crazy on TV PISS ME OFF. They are called dancing pandas because they cater to the foreigner stereotype in Japan, loud, cute, entertaining and semi-ridiculous. Where do they find these people? They definitely don’t have Western mannerisms or words, hyper-active and strange. There are some major ones that are ALWAYS on TV and I am finally angry enough to research who they are after watching them act like lunatics and pass it off as Western. According to my research, this foreign prototype makes people comfortable about foreigners. Dave Spector came here in 1983. Thane Camus practically grew up here. I don’t know why these foreigners who have lived in Japan for the past like 100 years think they can represent something that they’re not. How long does it take for you to live in a foreign country before you give up your cultural pride and sell out for the Almighty Yen?! I pictured all ex-pats as a national graveyard, filled with ghosts of pop culture’s dead past, popping up to scare everyone with a gory imitation of what they once were.
Then, I met a crowd of true ex-pats in Tokyo. A family friend has been living in Tokyo for about 20 years now and Jen and I went to visit him. I fully expected everyone to have adapted to the mannerisms of the TV gaijin. Not so. Surprisingly, not so. I have come to the conclusion that no matter how long you live in a foreign country, you don’t ever lose where you’re from; it’s not as easy as losing keys. You can only give parts of yourself up directly and by choice. I am so relieved. I refuse to become a national graveyard or to dance on other’s self-made ones. In the words of Pink, I am not here for your entertainment.

1 year old Blanket

2010-01-06T08:48:00.002+09:00

Oh man, good story. So LAST November, I took a blanket to this dry cleaner by my apt. I waited for a phone call to tell me it was done, and it never came...or so I thought. I came to the town office one day and they told me that the owner had called me, been to my house and finally had called them to find out if they knew who I was. I can’t believe he called the town office to find me, that’s either the best customer service EVER or really creepy. Considering that this is Japan, and the post office man came to my house last year to deliver like 800 yen ($8) in change and a free towel to me, I would say it’s just Japanese customer service. Anyhow, he said I could come get the blanket whenever. I took whenever to mean literally, whenever. I was really sick ALOT last year if you remember. I mean really sick, like I came home and didn’t want to move, I was so frozen. Anyhow, so a couple weeks past, and then a month past and then I was too embarrassed to go get it. I mean, what if he already threw it away, and then I couldn’t communicate, then I would have to call the town office to tell them I waited a month to get my blanket. Then, another month passed and I dreaded going near the place because I was afraid he would find me and make me take my blanket home and it was too embarrassing. So I eventually forgot about it within the year and hoped they would too. A couple weeks ago, he came to the town office and said he STILL has my blanket and wanted to know if I was cold and if I wanted it. I was like OMG I cannot believe he kept my blanket for a year!!! WHAT!? I went and got it from the store just in time for my friend Sarah’s visit this December. The plastic was dusty and a little torn, but the blanket was perfect! I would definitely have to say that Japan’s customer service is unparalleled.

At the Casa

2010-01-04T14:51:00.002+09:00

To You

2009-12-20T08:59:00.000+09:00

A Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Just One More Thing

2009-12-12T18:04:00.004+09:00

The nacho cheese was delicious. It was a perfect creamy texture. It tasted cheesy. It was not too think or too thick. It was too perfect. I had to add something to it. So I added taco meat. Then, I was scooping cups of water/grease out of it. Why does this always happen?

The chicken soup was good. Then I added lemon juice.

The pineapple upside down cake was good. Then I added pineapple juice.

The mashed potatoes were good. Then I added milk.

The list goes on and on. If I could just stop before the last addition, I would be a great *cough* cook :)

Japanese-Man Angel

2009-12-10T22:53:00.004+09:00

Thanks, Japanese-Man Angel.

I am pretty sure that's what you were.

Stopping to help two stranded girls at 10 pm in the middle of a dark lonely road.

What were you thinking? We could have been dangerous...Ok, ok. Maybe not. But still, you didn't have to.

Did you know that you came 5 minutes after Alex ran out of gas?

I know you saw our white splattered clothes outlined by headlights and wondered if we just jumped out of a trashcan.

But since you're an angel, you probably knew that we just finished making a whale pinata.

You dashed off on angel wings, hidden by a car, and gave a gas present to us within 10 minutes. Afterwards, you filled the car and promptly refused anything from us, even gratitude. I was too shocked for words, Angel, I didn't even know what to say.

It was over before we even knew what happened. Before we decided to do something not so smart. Before Ken could make it over with his fish tank tube to siphon gas out of his car since we thought all gas stations were closed. Before we ended up starting things on fire.

This is for you Japanese-Man Angel, wherever you are.

I hope you know how I feel.

Honto ni, Arigato.

English is hard.

2009-12-08T16:40:00.003+09:00

Why doesn't English make sense? Think about it from their point of view.

Student: "Are you sick?"

Me: No, I am not.

Student:"Well, are you influenza?"

Me: I play baseball. Student: "I play soccerball."

Me: I play volleyball. Student: "I play tennisball."

Me: I killed the other team in the soccergame!

Student: "I went to Nara to kill the team in the soccergame."

Me: "I like to play games at home."

Student: "I like to play rollercoasters at Universal Studios."

Me: "I like to go to the mall."

Student: "I like to go to home."

The Test

2009-12-07T10:49:00.005+09:00

I sat down to take the test, thinking I was confident about it. I mean, I wasn’t stressed out studying the night before like everyone else. I was drinking chu-hai (think Zima) and making sure the 4 lbs Cheddar cheese I bought was full of ice and safe for my joint birthday party this week. I entered the 100-ish person room and was directed to the number taped on a desk towards the back of the room. Phew, good. As I sat down, I tried to think of the word in Japanese for WIN. But all I saw in my mind’s eye was MAKETA. I quickly tried to shove LOSE out of my mind and replace it with the real word for WIN…but I couldn’t remember it. Then directions started, so I tried to shake my mind free from MAKETA, holding tightly onto my mind unbidden. I looked at the clock on the wall waiting for the countdown til the test. No opening yet or I would get a yellow card warning. I was disoriented since the clock on the wall was about half an hour fast. How long did I have!? I need a clock, my mind screamed. But when I heard hajimemasu, like a shotgun I raced with my pencil across the test. After this first round of Vocabulary and Writing, I remembered the word for win; Katsu. Too late. Sigh. After a 40minute break, the second round of testing, Listening, began. Again I tried to envision Katsu, which came to my mind weakly. At the end of the test, I saw a roach crawling across the desk and into this girl’s long hair. The girl behind her shooed it away, I don’t know what I would do. Maybe stand up and scream, earning me the red card that would get me kicked out. For the 1-hour lunch break, a dozen or so of us Westerners (most people were Chinese, Korean or Philipino) ate lunch together and discussed the roach-infested room, of which about half of us saw roaches in various places skittering around the room. After eating pizza and looking for non-existent vending machines (ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS!) the last round was about to begin. This was the nikujyaga of the test, the meat and potatoes that is worth the most: 70 minutes of pure, unadulterated Reading and Grammar. I studied this the most, so I was looking forward to seeing what I knew. I didn’t envision katsu or maketa but I felt relaxed. The Alice-in-Wonderland-esque clock in the room, the crawling roaches and MAKETA makes me disoriented about how I did. I truly can’t tell…but we will know in February. Iyada. However, even if I don’t pass, I am glad I did it. If I hadn’t committed to this test, I wouldn’t have pushed myself so hard or learned so much, and that makes me happy. I shot for the moon, and hopefully I will end up somewhere among the stars. Or at least out of Earth's atmosphere and in outer space somewhere. KATSU!

Fun in a Mask

2009-12-02T07:06:00.002+09:00

I stayed home sick on Monday (just a cold), so on Tuesday when I walked into school, everyone looked shocked. They thought I was going to be gone all week, because instead of plain sick, all they heard was possible INFLUENZA. But, they let me stay since I don’t have the flu, and I am glad because I want to teach! So I gave in today and decided to wear a mask at school, since I am sick and I want to give everyone peace of mind. Everyone is freaking out about the influenza. At first it feels like everything is muffled and unclear. After adjusting it incessantly for 2 hours, I think I finally got the feeling of it on my face. I think I like it. No one knows what I am thinking, because half my expressions are covered by the mask. I can talk to myself and no one knows that my lips are moving. I wore it in my car today and I can sing and no one knows that I am singing! I even wore it home; I feel like I am being stealth; who am I? Oh, that’s right you don’t know. For you all you know, I could be Japanese! So cool, everyone should wear a mask sometimes. It would be cool to decorate them too. Like you can draw Twizzler lips on it, or an alien mouth, or perhaps use it as a halloween costume. I think I will have a decorate-a-mask-and-rock-it party for my birthday coming up soon! ;)

Grammarland

2009-11-30T22:06:00.005+09:00

I realized that somewhere along the way, I fell off the planet and landed in a book. My Japanese grammar book introduces grammar through the lives of cartoon characters. I am starting to refer to Noriko and Maria by their first names (greeting grammar), and feeling sorry for Carlos who is in love with Noriko (expressing upsetness grammar). But Noriko is secretely in love with Peter I think because he taught (how-to grammar )her how to ride a bike. I was there for Maria's first job even (polite speech). Also, there is this mean little Japanese man who yells (imperative) Japanese orders them. I can picture it perfectly. It's like a soap opera and hopefully it will help me retain what I need to pass this freaking test! I have been studying so much, I almost forgot I was in Japan. I am in Grammarland with Noriko, Peter, Carlos and Maria. Yesterday, Noriko tried to eat moldy bread (become grammar), and Maria saved her. It was so good, so good. You should come sometime to Grammarland. Carlos is hot (adjectives), and tomorrow is Christmas (5 senses grammar)! I wonder if Noriko will like him (expressing desire) next week?

6 days til the Japanese Language Proficiency Test! Whoo!

I had a dream

2009-11-28T22:25:00.001+09:00

I had a dream that one day I forgot my pencil, eraser and passport, so I couldn't take the JLPT. That's right THE Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It was awful. I woke up sweaty. I just thought you should know, since I never dream.

3,333 steps

2009-11-16T22:37:00.001+09:00

I took a grammar break for a momentous occasion: To climb 3,333 steps. For all of the things I had to skip so I could study, I could not miss this. I did not prepare for it. No, no. That would have made it easy. I wanted it to be hard, almost impossible to do. The first 100 steps hit me like a ton of bricks. But it got better from there, as long as I didn't stop it was like I was in a bad dream, but a dream nonetheless. Got to the top, got a drink and went down all 3,333 steps and that was THE WORST. No more dream, this was a nightmare, that was real. My legs were like jelly at the first 100 steps. I told my jellyfish legs "GO" but they just wobbled. So I had to stumble down the stairs trying not to bend my knees. You can do it if you hold on to the parts where there's railing and kind of tumble down the stairs swinging yourself down with one arm then stopping and doing it again. Like dragging yourself by the arms and not really using your legs! It works! Then, for all our exertion; all 2 hours 24 minutes of it, I got a mini bag of rice, a towel, some handwarmers and a certificate with my name and time on it. YAY! I couldn't walk for 2 days and couldn't sit on my legs for a week, but I did it! See what no preparation gets you!

Today is Pocky Day

2009-11-11T22:28:00.002+09:00

Today is 11/11. Therefore it's Pocky Day (like the little chocolate sticks) not to be confused with Pokey Day (like the hokey pokey). Why? Well, notice all the 1's in the date, don't they look like Pocky sticks sort of? Well, as I was unaware of this grand holiday, I thought I would enlighten you too just in case. A teacher went around and gave out chocolate sticks to us to celebrate....And then we ate them... And that was it.....

Everyday should be Pocky Day!

New Campaign

2009-11-04T22:49:00.001+09:00

So the handtowel campaign is at an end, and now there is a new school campaign. The "Clean Desk Equals a Clean Heart" Campaign!!! I LOVE this campaign, it is too much! So everyday after school the teacher checks the desks, to make sure they are clean, and to make sure that the students take their books home every night to study! So the students are lugging this huge mass of books home every night, because this campaign will ensure that now they will study. I have noticed an increase of students that don't have books in class, but hey! Clean hearts are worth it I say!

New Kid

2009-10-28T21:58:00.003+09:00

I am so excited! I am so excited! I am so excited! Ok, are you sick of the exclamation marks yet? SO, this kid from Korea came to my school. And, why should I be excited you ask? Well, he only speaks Korean and English. So I GET TO BE his translator. I get to use the Japanese I have been studying so hard for, for real. Whoo hoo! I escorted him to class, and I am in charge of him. I can't believe this....I am in charge of a child's every communication. And they want me to teach him Japanese as quickly as I learned it (not so quickly actually). Of course, I do have my English classes and stuff that I do, but I am ecstatic to be in charge of making sure this kid goes through everything I went through over the past year starting with the 2 ABC's of Japanese, hiragana and katakana. Talk about deja vu, this is a great experience and reinforces everything I learned. I will test him by the end of the week, because I know what he should be capable of. He he he, and so it begins...I may be his worst nightmare, but he will be my greatest accomplishment.

My students won だいいち (dai ichi)！

2009-10-28T21:42:00.005+09:00

So, every year there is an English speech contest in my gun (county), represented by some 12 odd schools. Us native English speakers prepare these kids to compete against each other, so it is a bit of a source of pride for all of us to see how they do, because, in a way, we compete against each other (of course, it depends on how involved the actual English teacher, school, etc etc is). At the speech contest, it doesn't matter; what matters is that your students sound as native as possible! Last year my school didn't place, and apparently, we haven't placed in a looong time. Anyhow, so the 3rd year student didn't place (big surprise, she only met with me once), the 1st year students were replacements for the chosen students (who got quarantined for influenza the day before the contest) had ONE DAY to practice, and therefore didn't place. BUT alas, my 2nd years stuck with me til the end and they got FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!! I was so proud of them. But now we go to the "state" competition! The principal couldn't stop talking about it, took our pictures, posted it on the front board, made an announcement to the whole school as soon as we got back, etc etc. It was pretty interesting to see their surprise when they found out how awesome I am...ahem.... I mean....the students are of course. Lol, jk, but really I am so proud of them. Their speech is from their textbook, about Americans and how we say nice things to each other as a greeting, like "if you have a new bag, I can say 'I like your bag'." It's actually a pretty funny speech, very entertaining. I didn't even realize that Americans did that, but yes, we do compliment each other ALOT.

Typhoon 18

2009-10-07T23:43:00.008+09:00

Dear Typhoon 18 (aka Typhoon Melor),

I am so mad at you that I am going to call you Drizzle 18 (aka Typhoon Mellow). My work gave me the afternoon off to prepare for you and I was so excited to meet you. I got out my video camera, tested it, unblocked my view, took things off my balcony that might fly. I made sure I knew locations of dry food, flashlights, got water, etc. I did all this, and even considered filling my bathtub with water. And yet, you declined my careful preparation and decided not to come. Why don't you like Kumamoto? We tried to welcome you with open arms. Every news channel had reports about you. People were buying tape and canceling work, after-school activities, etc because of you. Numerous charts of your journey were being googled, printed and shown. Yet, you declined to turn up and go east instead. The only indication of your presence was slightly more wind. Not even rain. For this, I hope you pitter out soon, and thanks to you, I will welcome your successor with much less fervor. I hope you're happy.

Forever disappointed,

Cassandra

Old-Guy-Who-Stares

2009-10-06T08:30:00.000+09:00

So the rule intensive trash procedures have changed recently, as announced by signs that I couldn’t read. Apparently, the bags that used to be provided for me by the apartment building are no longer sufficient, but I must buy specific trash bags at the store from now on. Why this change? Who knows, but I am glad that Kate informed me of the change. Anyhow, someone I call Old-Guy-Who-Stares tried to inform me of the change and handed me a detailed paper explaining the new trash procedures. I took it as I walked by, saying I understood, refusing to be detained or risk being late to work by trying to communicate. Why do I call him Old-Guy-Who-Stares? Well, let me tell you. Old-Guy practices swinging a baseball bat outside every morning before I go to school. As if that isn’t reason enough to be anxious around him, as I drive out of the parking lot in the mornings, he stops swinging his bat and stares at me as I drive by. I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m in a fishbowl and it makes me squirm. Kate thinks I’m paranoid, but I hate him staring at me. I will not change my driving patterns either to go out the other way, just so he doesn’t stare. I just try to completely ignore him. Over the past year, we have exchanged awkward conversation in the elevator, when I happen to get stuck with him. Anyhow, so yesterday as we got stuck together again, he said, “How long will you be in Japan? It’s already been 2 years right?” (in Japanese of course) Haha! I answered that I didn’t know and it’s only been one year. Then, awkward silence commences until we arrive at our final destinations. I must have made him mad. But for some reason this makes me feel happy. Maybe he won’t stare at me anymore and now I can smile at him. I must be crazy.

Something Food

2009-09-30T18:50:00.000+09:00

So we ordered something potato salad from the menu and ended up getting French fries on top of lettuce. We ordered kimchee something and got a bowl of chewy cow stomach with a little hot sauce. We ordered a something American dog and got a half warm sweet corn dog. We ordered a something pizza and got a pizza with a half-cooked egg yolk in the middle.You never know what surprise you're going to get when you order something-something, but it's always fun! When you want a surprise, order something+something you know!

Let's stop playing dress-up

2009-09-29T22:48:00.009+09:00

I have been writing half-blogs for so long that I'm considering publishing each half to make an incoherent whole. I have so much to say, and yet at the same time don't. I feel like the half-blogs don't ring exactly true to what I feel, and so I have had a hard time finishing them. It's like this: I am watching a TV show with a guy who is popping (dancing) while twirling pizza dough at the same time, with the pop-up circles of 5 faces watching and reacting to what I'm watching in the background. As I watch, I realize that nothing is strange to me. Somewhere along the way, I have become "nihontsu", or "Japanese expert/lover" as my favorite school nurse said to me today. The teachers asked me if milk in Japan tastes different than in America. I said I couldn't remember. I have a faint memory of it tasting strange a looong time ago, as if it was a dream. It is hard to be excited when Jen (my sister, now a high school teacher) tells me some kid bowed to her or her teacher gave her a painting, it doesn't surprise me. I am glad that these things happen and she is having the full experience, but I can't share it with her. Of course he bowed to her, that's to be expected and more. Of course the teacher gave her something important, why wouldn't he? Although I have not even realized it, I have come to expect special treatment, whether or not I want it, which includes presents, extra attention, free things, etc. When I go to a cafe and the store owner takes us upstairs to see his special collection of Japanese antiques, I don't even bat an eye. Of course he does. Then he tells the teachers that I'm with, not to thank him for the special treatment, but Gaijin-san (polite word for foreigner) aka ME, as he pours us coffee like we're his personal guests instead of customers. I am mildly affronted, but I have not gone down the road of full-blown anger as some foreigners have, or full-blown conceit as others have. I crossed the road from guest to resident and it's hard to know how to react sometimes. Should I tell him I have been using chopsticks for a year now, so of course I can use them now? Should I tell him that of course I can say "Thank you" in Japanese, and I can even order food and understand too? But he is just trying to be polite and nice to the Gaijin-san, the guest, the foreigner. I am forever the guest, forever special, forever different. I am tired of finding differences, I want to find similarities. At the risk of sounding like a teenager, in short, I don't want to be special or talked about like a child, "How beautiful she is. What big eyes....long eyelashes..nice teeth... great accent." It half makes me feel like I should coo like a baby or do tricks like a horse. Some friends came to my apartment today to eat dinner together. As a couple of them were leaving they spotted a bill that had my name on it. They picked it up to inspect it and were very entertained by it, and in an instant, we became separated into Japanese friends and non-Japanese friends. I am smiling patiently awaiting their entertainment over a bill with my name. Just the usual. Of course it has my name, it's my apartment, right? But because of the way foreigners names are spelled, it looks strange on important things like bills, checks, signatures etc. My name is permanently in italics or quotation marks in Japanese, so I can understand their amusement. It's like I am not really a person, but a child playing dress-up. Let's play Japan! I'll be "Sally" and you can be "Bob". Sometimes I get tired of playing dress-up. I want to stop playing "Kasandora" and just be Cassandra. But I don't know how.

TV Screen in A Bathroom

2009-09-05T18:49:00.000+09:00

I went to a bathroom at the airport in Tokyo, and there was a TV screen in every bathroom stall. I couldn’t believe it, OIJ -Only In Japan! They were playing commercials. WOW! Can you imagine?

DPJ WON!

2009-08-31T18:50:00.004+09:00

Yesterday was the Japanese elections and I, for one, am SO glad it’s over. There have been cars and vans driving around with megaphones on all sides of the car. They are like ice cream trucks on crack, blaring commercials for political parties that you can hear even in your apartment. It is truly that loud. If you get stuck behind one of these cars WATCH OUT! You won't be able to hear your music or even think and are in danger of becoming deaf. I saw them on the morning of the elections, lined up like sharks at the prefectural office, getting ready to circle their city prey with their huge white posters and fin-like loudspeakers. They drive around waving and playing these really annoying records of some lady telling you to vote for their party. I cannot ever see this happening in another country. If this happened in the US, I would be motivated to specifically vote against that loud annoying party. As a side note, it is interesting that most of the people I talked to, and I would say Japan as a whole, don't care that the Democratic Party of Japan won. They don’t think anything will change anyway. The other party, the Liberal Democratic Party has been in charge of Japan for the past 50 or so years, so it is actually a semi-historic moment. In Japan, the people vote for a party, and the winning party votes for a leader in their party to become the Prime Minister of Japan. It will be interesting to watch how and if Japan changes because of the party change. I have heard many people tell me they want Obama to be their president. Then they say, "Yes we can" ;) I don't know of a pre-schooler who DOESN'T know that line. Are you listening, Obama?

Sitting Test

2009-08-31T18:49:00.008+09:00

I know this is going to sound really strange, but I have been building towards being able to sit on my legs Japanese-style for 2 hours. I want to be able to do a tea ceremony here, and for that I need to be able to sit for at least two hours without moving. When I first got here, I could only sit on my legs for a few minutes, then they would fall asleep and I would have to move them a lot. When we talk about this sitting style amongst our foreign selves, blood clots and circulation always comes up. But I am determined to conquer this sitting test; if they can do it and not die of a blood clot, so can I. Being able to sit on your legs for hours is what people consider part of the Japanese identity. It's kind of like this; one time this preschool teacher pulled back her eyes while pointing at mine and said "We're Japanese, we have eyes like this. Cassandra sensei doesn't, so she's not Japanese." She could have thrown in; "and we can sit on our legs for hours without moving, and she can't." (This is a generalization of course because there are plenty of people here that can't) Throughout the year, I have gotten through endless school ceremonies by watching the clock and timing how long I could sit on my legs. I am very thankful for the number of practice sessions I have had because of them. During these ceremonies, all of us women teachers watch each other out of the corner of our eyes and agree on an unwritten rule: the last one to move their legs wins. The first time I beat some of the older ones, I could see them watching me closely whenever we stood up to see if I would stretch my muscles or wince in pain. It isn't enough to sit on your legs for hours, you also cannot show pain or stretch. They believe that it should come as natural as using chopsticks for you to truly be Japanese. One teacher visibly moved her head up and down my body and said 'Doesn't it hurt you?" Nope. They are amazed at how long I can sit and are determined to uphold their view that only true Japanese can sit on their legs for hours. However, I am just as determined to shatter their beliefs. I can now sit on my legs for an hour and a half without moving. As soon as I can sit for two hours, I will celebrate with an actual full-on tea ceremony. I think I can make it by December ... that will be my final sitting test.

To Peel or Not to Peel?

2009-08-31T18:40:00.003+09:00

I sat at the lunchroom table with the teachers, contemplating the 3 grapes on my metal plate. I was waiting for the grape eating to commence, and trying to figure out how to stealthily eat my grapeskins without anyone knowing it. They started peeling off the skin of their grapes, and I slowly bit into my grape sucking the insides out slowly. By the time they swallowed the grape inside, I had quickly swallowed the grapeskin. Grape One down, two more to go. They only eat the inside of the grapes, not the outside, so I always hear it from the younger kids who are quick to let me know that I don't know how to eat grapes. They pile grapeskins on their plates like animal fur. I wanted to see if it was possible to not be noticed. Grape Two, oh I was spotted, but not caught in the action, so I have one more grape to go with everyone waiting to comment. By Grape Three I lost my undercover status and drew it out in the open, and making a big production, letting everyone know it was ok to talk about it. We began discussing how foreigners eat the outside of fruits like peaches and apples. By the time lunch concluded, we came to the agreement that the skin on Japanese fruits are tougher and more bitter than their Western counterparts and perhaps that explains the reasons for peeling. There weren't enough grapes or I would have had them do an American challenge and eat the darned grapeskin.

Have Have-Not

2009-08-07T16:00:00.003+09:00

Weeds grope anxiously
To reach the hanging pot where
Sleeping flowers lie

Can you feel me?

2009-08-06T23:00:00.003+09:00

Deserted mountain

reaches up to pierce the sky

and take its raiment

broken worthless car

why did you abandon me

when i needed you

never-ending days

my soul awoke to realize

it's the dead of night

snickering pigeons

teepee cities as they please

teaching their children

VoteforaParty

2009-08-05T14:38:00.000+09:00

Yesterday the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to my town। Hatoyama is his name, throwing out Prime Minister Aso is his game. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been ruling this country for the past 50 years, but has recently lost voters because of the bad economy, bad leaders, etc. They are on their 4th Prime Minster in 3 years, and getting ready to vote for a party in August, who will then choose the Prime Minister from among themselves.
Why do you even care? The US and Japan are close friends, with Japan being the second largest US export market in Asia (China recently surpassed) and Japan’s second-largest import market (aka We sell our crap to them the second-most, and we buy their crap second-most). Japanese firms are the United States’ second-largest source of foreign direct investment, and Japanese investors are the second largest source of purchasers of US treasuries (aka They lend us money to buy crap like cars and houses). The following graph is very concerning, to both America and Japan since our economies are so interdependent. Let’s face it kids, we’re in a symbiotic relationship, and what happens to one will affect the other (aka, we’re married, so we should pay attention to what happens to each other.).

Japanese Driving

2009-08-01T14:51:00.001+09:00

HappyOneYearAnniversary

2009-07-30T10:20:00.006+09:00

When we are not sure, we are alive. – Graham Greene.

Happy Anniversary!

ー周年[いっしゅうねん]おめでとう(isshunen omedetou）

As of today, July 30th, exactly one year ago, I flew into Kikuyo, Kumamoto from Tokyo and began my new life in Japan. I am remembering my wonder of a world full of fish and strange vegetables. A world where people with beautiful black hair live in paper boxes, contemplate nature and love cartoons. A yin-yang world of zen mysteries and contradiction, an ancient world of stoic warriors and a nascent world of technological exploits, living harmoniously together. Everything I dreamed was true and yet not; vastly different yet strangely similar.

I am recalling all the things that shocked me, and wondering if I would have been discouraged to know the amount of knowledge I would be forced to attain। Was there a time when I couldn’t read? Some of my misunderstandings came back to me when my brother Jake came to Japan for two weeks. I got on the bus, grabbed a ticket and in passing told him to grab a ticket too. He didn’t hear me, and was trying to pay a machine that gives out tickets. How could he not know that here in Japan, we pay after we leave the bus according to our ticket number? How else would we properly pay for the amount of time spent on the bus? Is that not common sense?

Being treated so well here, despite my social handicaps, makes me wonder about our collective treatment of immigrants in America. From what I know and have personally experienced, I have come to the conclusion that we have much to live up to in the Japanese treatment of foreigners.I have a tremendous amount of respect for immigrants in America, and immigrants anywhere for that matter. Many things that we take for granted (food, culture, protocol, societal norms, etc) aren’t what they seem and aren’t necessarily the best way of doing things. Something that I will take back with me is the knowledge that I don’t know what I don’t know, lest I think I am smarter or better than anyone else because they have an accent, can’t read, or have different ideas. When I meet an immigrant in the future, I will greet them as equals and wonder what cup of knowledge they brought with them, and how I can drink some of it.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. – Confucius

My favorite snacktime meal

2009-07-27T17:46:00.004+09:00

It's edamame hummus time, edamame hummus time!

Edamame hummus!

Edamame hummus with a cracker pack!

Edamame hummus!

Edamame hummus with a cracker pack!

Edamame Hummus

2 cups edamame
1 cup tofu
1 avocado
1 tsp salt
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
dash cayenne

Blend for two minutes and enjoy with the above song!

Ｎｉｎｊａ　Ｂａｒ

2009-07-27T15:51:00.002+09:00

Enter the ninja bar and prepare to be surprised by stealthness you cannot even begin to imagine. We were escorted to a blind-enclosed alcove by a classic two-toed ninja clad server. The ninja server, when rolling up the blinds to our dinner hideaway, would shout NIN-NIN-NIN. When pulling the blinds down, would shout DOROM! I believe that those are the phenomime noises that blinds make when they are rolled up and down, but don’t take my word on that. The menu came in a scroll and our appetizer was ninja starーshaped bread, that came with dipping sauce. A ninja magician randomly showed up in our 3-person alcove to do a magic show which was actually pretty good. The best part of this ninja restaurant, was that the button to order more food was…drum roll please…hidden under the table. Wow, so apparently, this made the ninja atmosphere more ninja-y. A hidden button is sure to make you shiver in ninja glory. The server button is usually right on top of the table, so imagine the ninja-fying experience of having to touch the dirty underside of the table to find the hidden server button. To be honest, the thought of a hidden button being entertaining, is more entertaining than the button actually being hidden. OHH!

Ｄａｔｉｎｇ　Ｐａｒｔｙ

2009-07-27T15:27:00.003+09:00

Jake and I went to the volcano, blueberry picking on the mountain, etc etc, you know, the usual... yukata (kimono) party on a rooftop. On Jake’s last day, we went on a 50 person dating party, and surprise surprise, Jake was the life of the party, with girls screaming “telephone number, telephone number” and pretending like they were about to beat Jake’s girlfriend up. I have never EVER seen Japanese girls act like this before. It could have been the people that were in dating parties, or those particular girls, but it surprised me. One of the party organizers, drunk and entertained, “auctioned” off the seat beside me and would keep informal time, to ensure that anyone who wanted to speak to me got a chance. Opportunities for them to test out their English on a native speaker is apparently rare。

Ｈａｒｒｙ　Ｐｏｔｔｅｒ　Ｔｉｍｅｓ

2009-07-27T15:16:00.006+09:00

Kate, being the Harry Potter fanatic that she is, reserved advance movie tickets at the local 7-11, for us to see The Half-Blood Prince. The $13 price tag was much lower than the usual $20, and the group reservation ensured that our assigned seats would be together. Japanese theaters have one rule: Absolute Silence. When I was little, my mom invented The Quiet Game, which was quite effective for 6 rowdy children, the quietest kid for the longest amount of time wins. That audience took the Quiet Game, added a Japanese twist, and took Silence to the 5th power. People chew the proverbial popcorn cud slowly and deliberately, with a massive amount of attention paid to not making any crunch noises. There is no way that anyone can finish a bag of popcorn in just two hours chewing time. Straw sucking is slow and painful, like someone with strep throat. When we entered the pin-drop silent theater, I was to be honest, slightly thrilled at the prospect of skipping stones across the placid sea of movie-goers. We show up, scream, laugh, giggle, jump and react in the way a movie was meant to be enjoyed, and in the end, we clap. Our 6 person clap was promptly drowned by the vast sea of silence. But we were still proud of our stone skipping. We left the theater and my Japanese friends were laughing as they came up to greet us. They said that although the theater was dark, they knew where we were at all times. They could have closed their eyes and found us using sonar waves. I don’t know how it’s possible not to react if something pops out at you; maybe that’s why Japanese movies are the scariest in the world. They need to be in order to elicit some sort of reaction.

Smartfm

2009-07-22T16:04:00.000+09:00

I would like to officially thank www.smart.fm for helping me survive 8 long grueling hours a day without classes. Schools are on summer vacation, and I am at the town office once more, waiting for school to begin again on August 27th. Kate leaves on Sunday, so soon it will be just me in the town office for hours and hours of studying/preparing for classes and presentation/being on a computer. Smart.fm, you are my reason for being awake, giving me everything I need to be sufficiently entertained for the day. You are coffee in a digital world.

Ｊａｋｅ　ｓｕｒｐｒｉｓｅ

2009-07-20T15:22:00.002+09:00

Top 3 biggest surprises to Jake (that I had totally forgotten was surprising to me):
1) Women sitting in the backseats. The backseat left hand side behind the driver’s seat is a place of honor and you’ll often see women and their babies sitting in the backseat with the husbands driving in the front.
2) Men looking at cartoon porn in the morning before work, there is a surprising number of guys in convenience stores, getting their morning boost before heading off to work. If I saw anyone that I worked with there…well I haven’t.
3) The minimalist amount of water (shotglass size) that we get served in restaurants, which has led me to carry around my Nalgene bottle, wherever I go, if I even leave my apartment, this bottle comes with me. I am constantly thirsty here.

Handtowels

2009-06-26T11:37:00.000+09:00

Today, the smell of a bathroom wafting down the hall sent the kids in a frenzy. Some begin frantically searching for their influenza masks while other searched for their hand towels. That’s right, the kids carry both around. Those surgeon masks that people wear around in fear of influenza, they carry with them in their backpacks. And the hand towels, it is considered unhygienic to NOT carry a small hand towel with you, as none of the bathrooms here have paper towels. EVERYONE in Japan, and I mean everyone, carries a towel with them everywhere.In fact, it is considered so important that there is a huge hand towel chart and graph displayed at school that is updated daily. This chart shows the classes that have all brought hand towels to school and the ones that haven’t. The classes that all have hand towels are announced over the loudspeaker. I don’t know how I feel about this, except that I do find hand towels useful in these increasingly humid days. I can also find other uses for these towels like wiping off my sweaty water bottle, covering things from the rain and wrapping things like my cell phone in it.

Hygiene

2009-06-26T11:36:00.003+09:00

Yesterday, I spied my students’ little bags of basil and chamomile flavored toothpaste. Most adults brush their teeth at work (school and the town office), and at school, all of the kids brush their teeth after lunch everyday.
I never realized that I considered brushing my teeth a private matter, but trying to converse with teachers with toothbrushes hanging in their mouths, brought the issue to light for me। Brushing together while casually leaning on the desks introduces a strange intimacy that makes me feel like we are having a sleepover or something. Even the thought of spitting together in the common area sink is just too much for me to handle. I gave it a try and it just didn’t quite fit my hygienic style… ok well I tried it for umm, only a day, but that was enough to satisfy my curiosity. Ultimately, it’s the sound of hacking that kills me. Walk by any men’s room after lunch and you will hear the sound of intense lung expulsions. Smoking is very popular here so I think that may explain the big chunks of whatever is coming out of them. When I go to the town office in the afternoon, I hear a loud, from the back of the throat combination of coughing and almost struggle-like chokes. It literally sounds like their lungs are being vomited out of their mouths. Good　times。

Japanese Phonomime, Phenomime, Psychomime

2009-06-24T17:13:00.025+09:00

How do you describe the sound of bubbles in soda? How about the twinkle of starlight? The sound/feeling of a stare? The crispness of chips or the sensation of steam on your face? How about the feeling of two people in love?

I swear Japan uses these sound/feeling words for everything. I say or hear the following words on an almost daily basis, when in English I would never say things like "stare sound" or my skin is "scratchy scratchy" or my stomach is making"grumble grumble" sounds or I am feeling "happy sound, happy sound". But anyone who has seen Pikachu's pika-pika sound, should vaguely understand the Japanese way of describing everyday sounds; sounds that may not have words in English. For example, when I say someone is fluent is English, I say they are pera-pera or "their English is speaking sound, speaking sound".

Jiii! My stare broke the shiin sound of complete silence as I watched an old couple walking and holding hands. I thought to myself, oh rabu-rabu (love-love). Then, I realized that my own hands were kasa-kasa dry, I applied some lotion to make them nice and tsuru-tsuru moist. Suddenly, I whirled around guru-guru to the sounds of a dog’s wao-wao and a sharp tamtamtam of someone at my door. It’s almost midnight and I can feel the doki-doki pound of my heart. Oh no, I realize that my room is bara-bara and I need to clean. So I quickly open my CC Lemon pop and calm myself with the shuwa-shuwa of fizz. As I open the door, I can hear the paku-paku of my friend eating. Then I realize my stomach is making peko-peko sounds, so I decide bring on the pati-pati crispness by munching on Pringles. Finally, I wash it all down with a big gabu-gabu of my CC Lemon. Then we relax on my fuwa-fuwa pillows, watch the kira-kira of the stars and hear the pera-pera of speaking. Uki-uki feeling, niko-niko smile :)

Mountain Dew Bread

2009-06-24T17:11:00.000+09:00

Today we had bread at school called meronbread. I wasn`t sure what it was made of, and I assumed some sort of melon (remember switch r and l). Based on our conversation, I concluded that we were talking about honeydew. One teacher asked, “Is that Mountain Dew’s, ‘Dew’”? Since the dew in honeydew is spelled the same and we were talking about the same thing, I answered with a yes. Mountain Dew Bread. Sounds like heaven to me.

Surprise! drink

2009-06-24T17:10:00.000+09:00

If I am ever bored, I go to the vending machine, because it contains a free surprise everytime and that makes me happy.You never know what drink you’re going to get. You can buy corn soup, to hot chocolate, to beer, to yogurt, to banana milk. I was really excited to get a huge can of a drink called X (double the surprise), but it turned out to be black coffee which I hate! My friend recently got a can of jello. As she was attempting to slurp it out of the can, it squeezed in her eye. Orange flavored jello in a can. Oh man. Anyhow, I have gotten used to jello-ish things randomly in my drinks and one of my favorites is Aloe Vera chunks in white grape juice. Yummy surprises at the end of every drink!

Death Mushrooms

2009-06-24T17:09:00.001+09:00

My co-worker approached me with a bag, so I thanked her, as I thought it was the normal humdrum bag of souvenirs that we get at school almost on a daily basis. Thank goodness the bag was marked MEMORIAL so I knew not to be too happy and thankful about what I was getting. This package of mushrooms wrapped in a fancy box complete with a card was a gift because her father died and …still not sure why I get a gift for that, but hey. Perhaps it’s because money was collected for her father’s death from the other teachers (I usually have no idea what's going on). People get money for everything. You pay money to go to weddings (at $200-$400 a pop), baby showers, New Years (children rake in $100's) so why not funerals? According to Wikipedia, guests must bring $50- $300 to the funeral AND the average Japanese funeral costs about $14,000, the most expensive in the world. WOW!

Rejection

2009-06-09T11:02:00.002+09:00

So my trash got rejected. I made it for almost a year without getting my trash returned to me with an embarrassing bright yellow and red note stating why I’m stupid enough to think I could get away with not sorting it properly. It’s been a week since my rejection, so I am finally ready to talk about it. At first, I glanced at it on the ground outside the trash area as I passed by, and didn’t recognize it. But the more I thought about it, the more familiar it seemed. When I walked by the next day for a closer inspection, I spied an envelope in the bag that said “Sandoval” on it, for the entire world to see. Argh!

Since all my refuse was exposed in a clear plastic bag, I just couldn’t bring myself to take it back at that moment. I don’t think I could handle the 10-story ride up the elevator with others seeing my naked waste. I was too embarrassed to take it back up to my apartment during the day, so I put it in my car and waited for night. Around 11 pm, when I was least likely to be detected with a trashbag full of rejection, I went to my car to retrieve it. Just in case there happened to be anyone around while I was taking it to my apartment, I brought an extra non-clear bag to hide it in. I felt like it was a dead body that I was furtively dragging back up to my apartment.

I kept thinking, ah, if only I hadn’t been lazy! Before I got myself into this debacle, I debated over that mandarin orange can for about 5 minutes while getting ready to leave for school that day and at the last second I threw it in, thinking, What’s one can in a bunch of junk? I guess if everyone in Japan thought that way, there would be a lot of cans and other recyclables in the trash.

I am a little nervous this morning for my trash, I mean I separated it, but for some reason I am afraid that it will be rejected again. I won’t feel safe til I come home today and make sure that it wasn’t rejected. Rejection isn’t fun, even if it’s only rejection of something that you don’t want.

Upon returning

2009-06-03T06:30:00.005+09:00

So, hisashiburi desu yo. It's been awhile since I've written on my blog and I apologize but I've been editing videos and that takes hours! Some highlights of stuffing friends/family in a tiny 3 week box (drumroll please):

1) Saw my brother's graduation, godson's birthday and my siblings!

2)Was shocked that I wasn't the least bit reverse culture shocked

3) Bowed to people unintentionally, sorry it's a habit now

4) Argh! I am annoyed that I say sorry a lot more in English, I am translating from Japanese

5) Casa Bonita!

6) #4 doesn't count, so #5 is that I saw my brother Josh's thesis on the impact of smells in choosing a mate

I loved being home and I miss it already. I noticed some things when I came back to Japan. I got off the 23 hours of travel, stepped outside and inhaled Japan's familiar heavy, musky, sweet smell. It's the smell of an island, indescribable, but different. I am used to it now, so I can't smell it anymore, but I remember the feeling that came with the smell. It felt like coming home, back to my apartment, my kids, and my life. Strange, but it reinforced my decision to stay for another year or two. See Josh, I learned something from your thesis :)

I was quarantined for a week in my apartment in case I had the H1N1 Flu and didn't go to any densely populated places like the mall. In fact, on the plane we were all scanned with infrared (to see if anyone had a temperature), made to answer a 10 question sickness test and every single passenger was inspected before leaving. It was ridiculous, I am so glad no one on my plane was sick, or I might have been quarantined in Tokyo. Oh Japan, you are too much sometimes! A video will be coming soon to a blog near you!

Japan 2: Travel

2009-05-31T19:00:00.002+09:00

Double click to see it bigger!

Japan Part 1

2009-05-30T19:01:00.001+09:00

Double click to see it bigger!

A Japanese Christmas

2009-05-29T19:02:00.001+09:00

Double click to see it bigger!

bite-size haiku

2009-05-26T15:13:00.004+09:00

And how is Japan?
supercalifragilist
worlds squashed in my mouth

IM COMING HOME with a baby!!!!!!!

2009-04-23T06:19:00.005+09:00

Wow, I can't believe I've been here for 9 months, enough time to have had a Japanese baby. In fact, my ability to speak and write Japanese was born here, so I guess I DID have a Japanese baby. My ability is still pretty much babbling babytalk, but like any 9 month old, I can understand ALOT more than I can express. And I always understand the emotional undercurrents, since I have had to become adept at nonverbal communication to survive. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to come home!!!

Japanese Flag

2009-04-17T13:00:00.002+09:00

The morning turns on gradually, like soft lamplight, in the Land of the Rising Sun, without any fanfare, and without the famous "Rising Sun" I expected. It's in the evening that the sun chooses to show its splendor. It doesn’t selfishly unfold its beauty in the early morning while everyone is still asleep, but it waits for the right time. It waits for evening when people are coming home and need to be woken up again and renewed from the business of the day. It is the Setting Sun that gathers up its light into a deep orange egg yolk to begin its long descent, becoming more and more red as it goes down. Just before it slides off the sky, it is the brightest orange red, getting ready to crack open on the other side of the world. Maybe it should be called Land of the Setting Sun. Is this orange-red egg yolk really the same sun that you see on the other side of the world?

The Twelve Days of Japanese Omiyage

2009-04-09T22:29:00.019+09:00

On the 1st day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
A wrapped package of green tea.

On the 2nd day I realize I am going back to America
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 3rd day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 4th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 5th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 6th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 7th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 8th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Eight toilet seats a'warming,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 9th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Nine Geishas dancing,
Eight toilet seats a'warming,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 10th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Ten Samurais a'fighting,
Nine Geishas dancing,
Eight toilet seats a'warming,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 11th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Eleven sake bottles a'steaming
Ten Samurais a'fighting,
Nine Geishas dancing,
Eight toilet seats a'warming,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

On the 12th day I realize I am going back to America,
What shall I buy you by April 24th? I wander aimlessly,
Twelve karaoke rooms for singing
Eleven sake bottles a'steaming
Ten Samurais a'fighting,
Nine Geishas dancing,
Eight toilet seats a'warming,
Seven Koi a'swimming,
Six Yen a'falling,
Five cherry trees,
Four paper cranes,
Three sushi rolls,
Two mochi
and a wrapped package of green tea.

April Fool's Day

2009-04-07T09:37:00.001+09:00

Although people don’t celebrate April Fool’s here, they certainly know the name. So when I arrived half an hour early to plant my jokes, unfortunately people were already in the office rearing to go, so I couldn’t get too crazy. (Side note: They are extremely busy at this time, since it is the end of the school year, the kiddies get 2 weeks off and then it is the beginning of a new school year. In the midst of this, the teachers and people in offices, mostly govt, are moved around to different offices around Japan. These mandatory moves are expected at a moment’s notice and could be hours away from home and family. Since Japan is about the size of California, effectively this is the government moving people from San Francisco to San Diego, or Sacramento to LA.) So I proceeded to stuff Kleenex into desks, open purses, jackets and shoes. Then I handed an exploding envelope (where a twisted paperclips jumps out) to everyone separately as they arrived so that all could get the benefit of their screams. I warmed Snickers bars and shaped them to look like “poo”, then put it in people’s coffee, on their desks etc. I poured salt in their tea and hid a scary-looking face in my supervisor’s open-and-waiting purse. Ok, A LOT was done throughout the day. You would think that they wouldn’t leave anything like drinks or shoes unattended. But no, they went on as usual, extremely entertained, but every time a new trick was discovered, no one searched their own shoes or desks. So darn trusting and gullible; I thought I was gullible! How could it continue to be a surprise!!! Nothing I did should have been surprising as soon as the first person stumbled into my traps I kept putting Kleenex everywhere throughout the day, in sheer amazement that no one learned not to trust….Kate on the other hand, wouldn’t touch anything I offered and didn’t leave her desk all day. She knew not to trust, zannen. However, I was happy when my trusting co-workers used my exploding envelope trick on the main boss. Yesss, after all that work I am finally leading them to the dark side!

Snow Flowers

2009-03-29T19:07:00.006+09:00

This weekend I went to Kumamoto Castle for a picnic, celebrating the cherry blossom leaves as they flutter and swirl around like snow; soft cherry snow. Hanami is a special time in Japan, where the dead-looking trees bloom with color-explosion flowers, looking like the living dead, since there aren’t any leaves on the trees yet. Blooming flowers on a dead stick. It was so lovely, I can’t think of anything like that in the States; the closest things being Fall, when dead leaves fall off. When I saw Memoirs of a Geisha, I thought the cherry blossom scene was a dream that only movies could produce. But, these cherry trees are dumping rose-colored petals in the wind like confetti; like I’m continuously at a wedding or royal ceremony. It makes me want to shout, “Long live the King”. I keep thinking, there is no way that this is real, it’s like a dream.

What should I do with pigeon eggs?

2009-03-28T19:41:00.006+09:00

I hate pigeons, I hate pigeons, I hate pigeons! Today I kept hearing pigeons outside of my bedroom window. Now this is strange because it's covered in netting to prevent pigeons from entering. I look outside my window, and low and behold, the little rascals found a way into my covered balcony. I shooed them away. A few hours later I heard them again. So this time when I went outside, but the pigeons weren't afraid, they just kind of hung in midair watching me. AAAHHH The Birds!! I got scared, so I grabbed the first thing I saw, a bike pump, stuck one arm outside the house and shook it furiously at them. They finally flew away after almost flying in my apartment, and that's when I saw it, DUN DUN DUN! A NEST!! They built a nest on my balcony AND it has TWO EGGS in it!!! I immediately went online to research pigeon removal while pondering: What should I do with these eggs? I have made a list of the possibilities:
1) Throw the eggs out in the trash. I don't know if this is the most humane thing to do.
2) Eat the eggs. Pigeon eggs are technically a food.
3) Let the baby pigeons grow, then eat them. My research confirmed that they taste like Cornish hens and are best eaten just before they leave the nest. In fact, they were once a popular food until chicken meat became more popular.
4) Let them grow, then make one of them my pet pigeon. I like this idea. I would call it Pete, Pete the Pigeon.
5) Put the nest outside somewhere and hope the parents find it. This might be the most rational idea.

Japanism

2009-03-26T16:23:00.004+09:00

re-li-gion
Spelled Pronunciation [ri-lij-uh n]
–noun
1.
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2.
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3.
the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

I’ve discovered that Japan is highly religious, contrary to what any study or book will tell you, and if their religion had a name it would be called Japanism, with the members being called Japanics. I’ve observed many outwardly religious acts throughout the year and I have finally come to some sort of understanding about the nature of this religion. Take yesterday for instance, the final day of the school year. The students were cleaning up the school (since there is no janitor), and before they started cleaning the teacher’s lounge, they stood in a line as usual and waited for the formal blessing before cleaning. The vice-principal usually says something to the effect of, “On the 25th of March 2009, the final cleaning of this school will occur. Let’s do our best!” I half-expected bells to ring and holy water to fly out of his hand. He is fantastic at making anything unimportant into a ritual demanding his ever present “blessings”. Oh, are you about to affix your official signature to some document or begin a class meeting? Let’s call vice principal over to invoke his blessing so we can begin, “On this day, the 26th of March…” To further demonstrate the Japanicity of everyday life, a formal gathering, of which there are many, is typified with the congregation sitting down in straight neat rows facing the altar (stage) on which there is a giant religious object (Japanese flag). Before someone ascends to the altar (stage), they must bow to the priest (principal) and deacon (vice principal), then the sanctuary (Japanese flag), bow to the congregation. Next is the formal sermon speech, usually invoking the “blessing”. Then it ends with the same ritual in reverse order for every person that ascends to the altar. At the end of the sermon, we sing a hymn (school song), which of course is formally accompanied by a piano and an altarboy/girl (student) who leads the entire school in tempo as a conductor . Everyone sings their hearts out in worship of the school and then we leave quietly. Throughout the sermon, if there is a child out of place in any way (murmuring, not sitting up straight, etc) he will provoke the religious wrath of the teachers who will swiftly descend upon him and heartily rebuke him. I finally understand why, out of all the formal events I’ve been to, people would rather attend the formal ceremonies and fall asleep during the sermon, than not attend at all. Don't be fooled, Japanism is the heart and soul of this country and Japanics are zealous in their religious observances.

Who's in the Doghouse?

2009-03-24T05:47:00.008+09:00

There was once a doghouse worth 50 bones. My doggie friend, Morty Broker, decided to buy it and sell it for 100 bones to Connie Sumerdog who really wants to raise her puppies in a doghouse not a doggie apartment. It’s kind of overpriced and Connie doesn’t know if she can afford it, but Morty tells her this is how things are done. The catch is, she can only pay 1 bone a year, so it will take her 200 years to pay Morty back with interest (which doubles the price). But Morty needs to be paid back by the time he’s in doggie retirement in 30 years. So Morty tells Connie that she can pay 1 bone a year for 2 years. Then, she can sell her doghouse or get another loan for another 2 years. If she doesn’t sell her doghouse, then she has to pay 6.6 bones per year in the third year. But it’s ok because she should get a raise in bones from her job by then, right? Morty tells Connie that she can also sell the doghouse in a few years and make money because someone will always want to buy her doghouse. After all, who doesn’t want a doghouse? Some dog will always want to buy it. Connie feels like such a lucky dog!
Morty comes to me, The Bone Bank, and says to me, “Hey Ms. Bone Bank, Connie Sumerdog's really cool, I checked her out and she has a job digging bones. She can’t really pay for this doghouse, but it doesn’t matter because she is going to sell her doghouse in a few years and make money. Over 30 years she is going to pay me 200 bones for a doghouse worth 100 bones, do you want in?” Oh yes, I diggity dog do! I buy that piece of canine paper that says Connie will pay me 200 bones over 30 years. Then I give Morty some bones for finding it for me. Morty comes back to me with different pieces of canine paper for other lucky homebuyer dogs. I keep buying these pieces of canine paper. This is so great! Connie and the other dogs are paying me and everything is going well.
Then I realize that I can make more bones for my Bone Bank self by putting some of these pieces of paper together in cute doggie packages and selling them. The Doggy Credit Agency comes in and says, “Bowwow this is cool, and safe and every dog should do it.” I ask Innie Vesterdog if he wants to buy some of my bundled pieces of canine paper to help him in doggie retirement and he says yes. Then I find a European Innie Vesterdog and an English Innie Vesterdog and Innie Vesterdogs all over the world that want to buy my bundles of canine paper.
Then, all of a sudden, Connie wants to sell her doghouse, but no dog can afford it since it’s too expensive. Doghouse prices are now 150 bones! No way! The doggie renters decide it’s better to live in a dog apartment than a doghouse. But it’s been two years and Connie still doesn’t make enough bones to pay me back. She was paying 1 bone and now she has to pay 6.6 bones. She thought Morty Broker was trustworthy and was helping her. But Morty just wanted money. Morty wants to sell me more pieces of canine paper, but I don’t want them anymore. I’ve heard that the other dogs have stopped paying bones to Innie Vester dogs since they couldn’t afford their doghouses anymore.
Then I hear my friends, Lehman Bone Bank and many others went out of business and I lent them bones! I heard that they bought lots of Morty’s worthless pieces of canine paper. My other dogbank friends want to borrow bones from me, but I don’t want to give them any more bones. I don’t know if Morty has sold worthless pieces of paper to them too. Then I won’t get my bones back from any of them! The Doggie Government comes in and gives me some bones and tells me to lend them out. But I don’t want to because I don’t know if my doggie friends are in trouble. It’s a dog eat dog world. The End.

What happened to me?

2009-03-23T17:13:00.006+09:00

Is it strange that I don't think drinking collagen is weird? When did I start expecting rice and green tea at every meal? How is it that I eat sesame seeds every night? When did I stop thinking that the small bubble showing Japanese people's reactions to the same TV show I'm watching on TV was strange? How is it that when I see an American movie, it looks like they're driving on the wrong side of the road? When did I start covering my laughter with my hand? Why do I feel naked if my collarbone is exposed? When did I start half-running when someone is waiting for me? How is it that I think chopsticks are easier to pick up food? When did I start peppering my vocabulary with Japanese phrases like daijobu (ok), ne (right?), eeeh (surprise sound) and ii yo (don't worry)? How is it that I can sit on my legs for hours without moving? When did I start thinking fish, rice and soup with other random seafood sounds kindof good in the morning? What is going on!?

I drank milk :(

2009-03-17T22:04:00.006+09:00

So at Starbucks today, these random Japanese people stopped me and bought us drinks and cakes. WHOA! How cool is this country that these people want to talk to us for no reason at all? The thing is, I chose chai tea, but it has milk (which I gave up for Lent)!! I ate cake (which I didn't give up, but it is normally made with milk)! AHHH!!!!! I even looked up the ingredients to double check and the verdict is: Tazo Chai, hot water, steamed milk! Why did I do that!? Can't I give up one little thing for 40 days!!? It's not about not drinking milk, it's about self-discipline. Why don't I have any? It upsets me deeply.

"We all must suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment." - Jim Rohn

Eat Drink and Be Merry?

2009-03-14T10:56:00.008+09:00

It's all fluff. I eat it all day long and it makes my mouth dry and my stomach unsatisfied. No matter how much I eat, I am still hungry. Sweet cotton, light and unfilling, it tastes like candy and melts in my mouth. It sickens me, although I secretely crave more of it. After I eat too much of it, my teeth rot. I try brushing my teeth, but it's not enough. The cotton candy has spread inside me and I am full of it. Then it pours out of me and I give it to you to eat too. Then we eat together and destroy ourselves, because the cotton is rotting us inside. Why do we crave fluff when we know what it is? When I am finally away from its cloying taste, I realize I don't want it and I never did. I want real food, but where can I find it?

Two Graduation Letters

2009-03-13T23:47:00.004+09:00

Can it get any better than this? I LOVE MY STUDENTS!

Hello.
Thank you for celebrating a graduation ceremony today.
Though it leaves the junior high school, sometimes it please e-mail me anytime that you want to talk to me.
I try English study hard in the senior high school.
Because more talks are possible with you.
And I want to have various talks together.
It seemed to be so, and today's shopping was failure a little.
The purchase of the rainy day is hot.
Then it is this neighborhood today.
I look forward to your answer.
I will fight with a dictionary. SEE YOU !

From Your student Akane(茜)　Nishida(西田)

Hallo,Cassandra！　Ｍｙ　name is Mituki. Ｔｏｄａｙ　ｉｓＴｈａｎｋｙｏｕ very much! I am very happy and little sad today…(T_T)　 but…May this joy last forever！ and You are great english teacher！ I am very proud of you！！ I am looking forward to your reply！
Seeyou！ Mituki

I scream for IceCreamChocoBread

2009-03-11T23:33:00.007+09:00

So did I tell you I gave up chocolate, bread, and ice cream (milk) for Lent? This past weekend at a Japanese bingo party (lol), I saw my ultimate temptation: Chocolate covered bread topped with creamy ice cream! It was calling my name over and over: Eat me! Cassandra eat me! Good thing I was distracted by matchmaking friends or it would have been hard to ignore its beckoning. This bingo party was pretty cool, we had to write names of the people we met in the bingo squares and then our names were randomly called out and of course we had to get a bingo. So if the name was Yuki, I had to confirm with a Japanese speaker that it was Yuki and not Yuuki or Miyuki or something that I couldnt quite catch. I didn't win any of the bingo prizes, but after the bingo game was over, I realized I had a bingo. ARRGHH!! If only I could understand faster! Oh well, someone gave me their coffee prize (yay) so I was happy. Afterwards we went to a karaoke bar, and my friend's co-workers were SO excited to talk to a foreigner. One guy said he had never talked to a foreigner before and was entertained that Bob Marley was NOT pronounced Bobo Mururee. Another guy was using his cell phone to talk to me; he got the dictionary to speak English and would put the phone to my ear to listen. When it stopped working, as technology inevitably does when needed most, he asked my friend to translate what it said on the phone for me IN ENGLISH. He forgot that communication isn't always verbal. I laughed when I saw that and told him, "Hey, I can read." He laughed when he realized how not smart that was. I was a little tired though, since the night before we had gone to a big city called Fukuoka, getting back at 9 am that morning. It was a blast drinking wine, eating birthday cake on the train and entertaining the attendant. Dancing all night at normal-ish bars not feeling so stared at was also a relief. It must be SO HARD to be a star; I would NEVER want to be famous. You always have to be "on", and there's no such thing as running to the store in your pajamas. I almost want to wear huge glasses and a big floppy hat like I've seen done in LA. But then I would stand out even more (*sigh*). Good times in Japan.

Spice Up Your Life!

2009-03-08T16:59:00.005+09:00

Life is like salsa. From the juicy tomatoes to the pungent onions, each ingredient is an important part of the spicy goodness. Sometimes it burns and makes you cry. Most times it is deliciously flavorful and makes everything worth it. What good is a bland salsa? Be passionate. Be daring. Be spicy!

I look like a horse?

2009-03-04T21:41:00.006+09:00

Crazy story. So yesterday a junior high girl asked me, "What animal do I look like?" At first I thought I misunderstood or something, so I had her repeat it. Then we brought the teacher in on the conversation and the teacher repeated, "What kind of animal does she look like?" WHAA!? How do I answer that question? I don't generally classify people into animal groups, so I didn't have an answer for her. Animals don't look like people! Unless the owner and the animal are both old and have lived together forever, then MAYBE.... So I asked my teacher about it, and she said friends sometimes tell each other they look like ____ animal. So I decided to try it today. I told her, "You like like a panther." (Since she was wearing Puma brand, lol) She just laughed, so I asked her, "What do I look like?" And she said, "You look like a horse." WHHAAATT!! I almost died of entertainment shock, I was SO amused. A HORSE!! I asked her, "Why?" She said because my hair was in a french braid and it reminded her of a horse. So therefore I look like a horse. Hmm, I think if I were to run with this horse idea, I would be an Arabian stallion because stallion is a cool word and I love anything Arabic. As a side note, Arabian stallions are powerful, intelligent and spirited. Yay me! What animal do you look like?

Stupid Trainpole!

2009-03-02T22:54:00.005+09:00

Did I mention that a trainpole hit my car as I was going over the traintracks the other day? Is it a trainpole? I don't know that that yellow-and-black-bar-of-obnoxiousness's real name is, but I think trainpole is a good a name as any. There weren't any red flashing lights or noises going off, by the way, before I crossed the tracks. I semi-ducked in my car to avoid the trainpole, but it hit my car anyway, even though I was going as fast as I could over the tracks. I have NEVER seen a trainpole hit a car before. I wish I could have seen it from the Japanese-guy-whose-eyeballs-were-about-to-pop-watching-me's perspective. The warning signals and the trainpole came down at the same time. How stupid is that!! Stupid Trainpole! I wish I could hit you too! I think you did it on purpose just to embarrass me!

Junior High Games

2009-03-02T21:31:00.006+09:00

Today, for the first time, I taught all of my junior high 2nd years (all 4 classes) [8th grade equivalent] for the entire class period. I usually teach by myself at all of my other schools, pre-school, elementary and adult class, but this is the first time that the teacher let me run the show for the entire class in junior high. It was awesome and I am glad that I was finally given the chance to prove myself. To be perfectly honest, it had been grating on my nerves for a good 4 months that I wasn't given the opportunity to actually teach junior high by myself. Then I came to terms with it, and for the past 2 months, I contented myself with writing letters back and forth with the students, since I didn't feel I had adequate interaction with them. Now the tides have turned and I have taught 1st years (for about 10 minutes) and 2nd years. We did a Mission Impossible Game where the students, in teams, had to solve each problem, then hand it to me to get the next problem to solve until all 6 were done. They loved it...and they loved my computer most of all. They kept touching it and wanted to know what music I had on it and were BLOWN away that it was all in English. Hello kids, I teach English! It was pretty entertaining. Although, I don't know why I am laughing at them, because I was blown away when I first came to Japan that the keyboards were different and everything was in Japanese. I see myself in them all the time, which makes it really entertaining....wait, that DOESN'T mean I act like I'm 13, by the way (to you sarcastic commenters, you know who you are)!! I am starting to learn their names now...they don't sound so foreign anymore. 1,000 Ayaka's, Momoka's, Ayana's (girls); Takahiro's, Ryuu's and Kenta's (boys) later, I can tell which is their first and which is their last names. It wasn't always so. They can't tell which is my first and last name either.

I Must Inform

2009-02-24T00:40:00.009+09:00

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -Henry Ford
I like this quote although I disagree with it. If Henry Ford understood how it worked, he would have realized he would have not have been as successful if a bank hadn't given him money to finance his dreams. Or he would have been more successful if he realized someone needed to finance consumers who wanted to purchase his cars. Who financed his 5 bankruptcies?

WARNING: This is a boring article on economic related matters. Don't read if you are allergic to money. I try to keep my blog light and fluffy, but sometimes I think an all-dessert diet begs indigestion. It is pretty much impossible to talk about this in a short blog, but I must since I am a banker in these VERY INTERESTING economic times, lest anyone forget. And so I digress...

What you should know:
Banking and really anything financial boils down to trust. The markets rally or sink based on trust. Did I trust that Bear Sterns was a company of integrity that would never get mixed up in bad loans? Do I trust that anything on the market isn't part of the toxic waste loans? People trusted their non-regulated non-bank mortgage lenders to give them a house. I emphasize non-regulated non-bank because an investment bank is not a bank, it WAS (before it died) a high-risk, non-FDIC insured company that added bank to its name to imply trust. This trust was unfortunately misplaced and now the world is paying for it. The dollar grows weak or strong based on trust. Do other countries still trust us enough to use our currency because they believe we are politically stable and will not default on debt? If the world doesn't trust that we can get ourselves out of the mess we got ourselves into, we can trust they that will flee from us like the plague. You can trust that they will never blindly trust us again.

Obituaries since Sept: Read 'em and weep
-In September, the US reportedly averted a total economic collapse (NOT GOOD! As in near halt of credit card limits, mortgages, student loans, car loans, commodities, etc, as companies would begin to fail like dominoes)
-Global recession officially began when Lehman Bros. (investment bank) was allowed to fail in Sept.
-Iceland, an ENTIRE COUNTRY, went bankrupt.
-In November, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley (investment banks) are converted to commercial banks, ending the risky investment bank era.
-World growth is expected to fall to ½ %, the lowest since WWII.
-A $700 billion blank check was thrown at the US economy (greater than all foreign aid from rich to poor countries in 7 years and enough to save Social Security for the next 100 years)
-The world economy is shuddering to a halt, since the US has historically been the source of 1/3 of global demand.
-Lloyds TSB, which many in Japan use for sending money home, is flailing as a result of a government-forced marriage to a “toxic bank”.
-The UK and Switzerland are in DANGER as each carries debt in foreign dollars which means that the debt can spike out of control very quickly (Ex. In Sept, if I sent $1,000 from Japan [in yen] to the US [in dollars], I lost about $70 depending on the day. Today, if I send $1,000 to the US, I make $70 depending on the day. Now multiply that times billions and imagine me as a country and it gets really scary and unpredictable.) The US carries debt in mostly dollars, so at least in that aspect, we're golden.
-China and India are still expected to grow and many look to them as the world's economic saviors.

Self-Reflection in Stares

2009-02-23T20:39:00.011+09:00

I will not look at the windows, though they are everywhere, pools of light reflecting me. The glass magnifies the light that burns into my soul, highlighting shadows and dust. Sometimes, my gaze sees me accidentally and I quickly slide my soul-burned eyes to the ground to avoid them. Why am I afraid to look? What will I see? Will it be the 5-year-old, too terribly naked to even take pictures? Or will it be the 14-year-old who wove a dream around herself to cover her nakedness? I can hear my thoughts scream cover yourself, cover everything about you, and I can't plug my ears. I can see me looking, but I will not look myself. My soul is mine to give you, and I am not yet ready to show me. You stab me with pinpricks of light, that I dutifully swallow, because I gave them to you. Sometimes they travel around my body as intense heat and irritate my stomach, giving me indigestion.
I am not non-Japanese, I am me.
I am not not-you, I am me.
I am you, I am me.
We are the same, don't you see, you and me?
But I can't see unless I look, and you can't see unless I look.
Please close the windows so I can look, it is too bright, and I can't see.

My Shower on Fire?

2009-02-18T17:44:00.010+09:00

Yesterday my shower....started on fire...I think ( I have a picture on my Sep 2, 2008 blog). I say I think because smoke was everywhere and I could hear the fizzle of burning. I opened the window and got out of there. I have always been afraid of my Japanese shower; which is understandable considering my naked body is in a watery enclosed room containing gas and fire, and a strange unintelligible machine that I can't see under. That's no secret. The shower is a dinosaur (monstrous, big, scary) contraption that goes a little something like this:

1. Turn the gas knob at the base
2. Hold a dial down and wind a separate handle three times
3. Hold the dial for 15 seconds
4. Turn the knob to 2 (out of 3)
5. Then turn another lever THEN hot water will come for a shower.

Somehow this finicky machine the size of a labrador dog, standing in water, lights itself on fire with gas and heats my water. I don't get it ... nor do I want to because it's obsolete; I just don't want to die. So, when someone came from my town office today to investigate my smoke claim, OF COURSE it started up like it always does without the smoke. This led to the conclusion that maybe something was in the fire ... like a bug or worse. SICK! I will leave the details to your imagination. It makes me shudder. That's why I shower fast and just can't take a bath in there. I keep imagining a big hairy [insert scary image here] crawling out from under the contraption, or the machine electrocuting me or the gas exploding or a pigeon coming in the window or .....

Vending Machine Coffee

2009-02-15T22:15:00.003+09:00

It's getting warmer hooray! I think it may be one of the last times I buy coffee out of a vending machine as a handwarmer.... oh did I mention that you can buy HOT beverages out of vending machines here (just look for the red signs directly underneath the beverage NOT the blue signs)?! I don't know if I had already, but let me tell you it's well worth the dollar you pay to have a warm can of coffee in your pocket that lasts for a couple hours...then you can throw it away since it's disgusting and maybe unhealthy once it gets cold (I tried it). There are vending machines on practically every corner so they have been a lifesaver in trying times of coldness. My favorite coffee is the hot Boss Cafe Au Lait if I'm actually going to drink the coffee; or the biggest size can if I'm just using it as a handwarmer.
Hot can of coffee = $1
Warm Hands and Kimochii (Good Feelings) = Priceless

My First Cookies

2009-02-13T00:00:00.008+09:00

I have never made cookies before...isn't that strange? Well, I guess I have to take it back chotto (a little), I have made cookies with friends or family who initiated the deal and told me what to do ... I don't know that it ever entered my head to make cool food items as gifts (mainly because I would probably mess up and have to buy something anyway). Anyhow, so I made my first batch of cookies today, 44 to be exact of peanut butter cookies that I am going to give away for Valentine's Day. Yes, they do celebrate it here although it is different; as far as I know the biggest difference is that girls give chocolate to guys (Don't worry guys have to give it back two-fold in a month in a holiday called White Day). I will explain more about Valentine's Day after it passes to make sure I have my facts straight... but I am really excited about these cookies. Half of them are crispy...well chotto (a little) burned; they were only in for 10 min. I had to try to fix them so I tried to melt chocolate to pour on them but it turned gooey and burned. So then I found that I had powdered sugar and poured it on, since Mary Poppins taught me that sugar helps things (like medicine) to go down in a delightful way, it can surely cure burned cookies. The other half I had to cook for thirty minutes and they are chewy. 30 minutes and 10 minutes for the same cookies?! I don't get baking...it just doesn't make sense. BUT by the time I leave here I will have made friends with the oven, in fact, we'll be best friends. Don't be jealous.

Stories: My New Obsession

2009-02-11T20:45:00.008+09:00

Hello, my name is Cassandra, and I'm a kanji-holic and you can be one too. When I first got here I didn't even want to think about trying to learn how to write in kanji. It was too difficult for my brain to even fathom trying...too many squiggles and lines everywhere and it gave me a major headache. Now I am obsessed with kanji. I can't stop studying them. I am not normally an obsessive person, but let me show you how one can become obsessed!! Check out this character:

Just looks like an X right? Well it actually means 'Father'. How do I see father? Imagine 2 swords clashing and Darth Vadar saying "Luke, I am your father." It's father! How awesome is that! (Not my original story but I LOVE it) Yay I can read! How about this one? I love this one, I call her the Lady in the Dress. I see her everywhere:

Her real name is 'Minute' or 'Part' because part of her is missing (Her upper body got chopped off) and she walks quickly not wasting a minute as all women do :) Yay I can read more! Isn't it interesting? I can tell stories all day long and the kanji build on eachother to make better stories that are just waiting for me to tell.

But wait it gets better! Look at the Lady in the Dress now, she is making 'Flour' out of rice! Ha of course she is ... don't women do everything?!

Lol so 'Part' + 'Rice' = Flour (It can actually get EVEN better because the Lady's legs actually mean 'Dagger' and think of all the stories you can make with that knowledge.)

My Japanese Taste Chart

2009-02-07T00:43:00.021+09:00

While having something called shabu shabu (meat and cabbage boiled in tea), I realized that I like internal organs. Eww gross!! How dramatically my food tastes have acclimated to Japanese food. Let's relive my 6 month food adventure full of exciting things like horse, whale, internal organs and rawness.

July/August - No fish or seafood. My favorite food was karagge (fried chicken) and Kumamoto ramen (ramen). SHOCK: Wow, I can actually eat this food.

September - Only small amounts of cooked seafood. My favorite food was karashi renkon (fried lotus root and horse radish) and hachimittsu toasto (honey toast). DOUBLE SHOCK: I ate internal organs and liked it.

October - Cooked seafood is good. My favorite food is taiyaki (sweet red beans in a pancake-ish wrapper) and miso soup. SHOCK: I ate octopus.

November - I LOVE cooked fish and most cooked seafood. My favorite food is miso soup. SHOCK: I ate raw horse.

December - I can eat raw fish in small amounts. My favorite food is school lunch :) and caraimo (sweet potato). DOUBLE SHOCK: I ate whale and it's an endangered species.

January - My favorite food is nabe (hotpot). I am tired of miso soup. I still can't eat raw seafood. TRIPLE SHOCK: The one thing I had to throw away (or throw up) at school lunch IN 6 MONTHS was just hot mochi (ball of ground rice; that's it) in soup. WHAT!?

My Japanese Vacation

To you Kate Koehler

COLA SHOCK!

Desiderata

AussieLand

Goodbye

Tests tests tests

Happy 4th of July!

What is up with Colorado?

Waste of Time?

Moral Classes

Pay It Forward is from Japan

Polite Tourette’s

My first taiko performance!

China

Thai LAND!

Handkerchief god

Eel Pie

King of Pop

Bread Crust

Survivor

More Apples Please

Japanese Soup

Mondegreens

My name

Terrible Twos

Nico Wa Petto

Catch

NameTag

2010 and such

Dancing Pandas

1 year old Blanket

At the Casa

To You

A Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

Just One More Thing

Japanese-Man Angel

English is hard.

The Test

Fun in a Mask

Grammarland

I had a dream

3,333 steps

Today is Pocky Day

New Campaign

New Kid

My students won だいいち (dai ichi)！

Typhoon 18

Old-Guy-Who-Stares

Something Food

Let's stop playing dress-up

TV Screen in A Bathroom

DPJ WON!

Sitting Test

To Peel or Not to Peel?

Have Have-Not

Can you feel me?

VoteforaParty

Japanese Driving

HappyOneYearAnniversary

My favorite snacktime meal

Ｎｉｎｊａ Ｂａｒ

Ｄａｔｉｎｇ Ｐａｒｔｙ

Ｈａｒｒｙ Ｐｏｔｔｅｒ Ｔｉｍｅｓ

Smartfm

Ｊａｋｅ ｓｕｒｐｒｉｓｅ

Handtowels

Hygiene

Japanese Phonomime, Phenomime, Psychomime

Mountain Dew Bread

Surprise! drink

Death Mushrooms

Rejection

Upon returning

Japan 2: Travel

Japan Part 1

A Japanese Christmas

bite-size haiku

IM COMING HOME with a baby!!!!!!!

Ｎｉｎｊａ　Ｂａｒ

Ｄａｔｉｎｇ　Ｐａｒｔｙ

Ｈａｒｒｙ　Ｐｏｔｔｅｒ　Ｔｉｍｅｓ

Ｊａｋｅ　ｓｕｒｐｒｉｓｅ