Adventures Doing Stuff that would be Ho-Hum if I weren't Inept

This is my car, Touto. He is also my ticket to freedom in this small town--too bad I'm terrified of him.

It's not just the riding on the other side of the road that terrifies me, it's also the fact that Japan is very, very easy to get lost in. Almost none of the streets have numbers or names posted, so if you're receiving directions, you have to be able to identify landmarks instead. Given that I consistently found myself lost in Utah, with its neat grid pattern of streets, I think my fear of driving in Japan is justified. But on the other hand, there's only so long that you can sit in an apartment and contemplate your future before scaring yourself insane. This is how unabombers and 50-hour Call of Duty marathoners happen, people.

So yesterday I went out shopping.  A Japanese girl who stopped at a light next to me nudged her friend and they both stared at me until the light changed; Mogi-san says they hardly ever seen foreigners here. I soon returned the favor in the market, where I stood in the middle of aisles and waited for someone to buy something so I could watch how they did it. I guess supermarkets are similar the world over, but there were some differences, for instance, they're very green here so you don't use bags for your veggies and you should bring canvas bags for your groceries. You also don't hand the money to the cashier; you put it in a little plate and push it towards them. Things aren't pricey until you try to get things that require livestock, like dairy or meat. Because Japan has so little free land, raising livestock is expensive.

~~ Speaking of green, they have you separate all your trash into "burnable," "non-burnable," and plastic. And then you have to write your name on your trash bags so if your trash is incorrectly organized your neighbors can bring it back to your doorstep as a public censure. Yeesh. ~~

After the grocery store I found a hyaku-en shop, the equivalent of our dollar stores only infinitely cooler. Everything there is 100 yen, which is about $1. I got soup mixes and dishes and towels, all for around $7. Needless to say, I know where I'm going to be spending most of my shopping days.

After that I got lost. I'm worried about any of you who didn't see that coming. Luckily I had nothing to do, so I just kept driving in concentric circles (NOT making that up) until I saw something familiar and could make my way back from there. Whew. I feel like a mouse, making swift forays into the world only to dart back to safety at the first sign of wind or a big shadow. And I have to admit, I miss the stereotypical "American" diet. Gone are the days when I barely had to step outside before I had a hamburger in hand. :) But no worries; today Mogi-san introduced me to a restaurant where you can pay 250 yen and get as many drinks as you like (and the food is reasonable, too). Needless to say, I will be staying there as much as possible. While we were there I tried "Calpis", a soda with a milky color. Mogi-san says it has cultures in it for health benefits--trust the Japanese to make soda healthier and slightly unsettling!

Apartment Pictures

Iide at last...

As I write this I am curled under a kotatsu, which is arguably the best Japanese invention of all time: a table with several layers of blankets around the sides and a heater underneath. I am also sitting, for the very first time in my life, in an apartment that I can call my own. And, also for the first time, watching snow pile up on the rice paddies of a very, very small Japanese town.

This morning all the ALT's said their goodbyes. You'd be surprised by how sentimental some of us became; some even cried. But there was none of that coerced sentimentality the springs up from "character-building" camps or self-help seminars--this was the real deal, a sense of togetherness strengthened by the heady cocktail of homesickness and crippling fears of inadequacies we were all battling. Sleep-deprivation and hang-overs probably played significant roles, as well.

After a few hours of train-riding I ended up in small city where Mogi-san, my hired handler, was waiting for me. Her English is flawless, but she intersperses it with Japanese on purpose to give me a chance to practice. She immediately took me to a ramen restaurant, which won my heart to her side--but if that wasn't enough, she also stayed with me the whole day to help me arrange things, gave me several essentials (towels, etc.) from her home, and showed me a cake shop around the corner from my apartment. After today, I can dispel 2 myths about Japan: the food is not all that expensive, at least in the sticks (a lot of it was actually cheaper), and I will NOT be losing much weight here.

My apartment is spectacular; far better than I imagined. It's relatively new, but built in a traditional Japanese style, with tatami mats on the floor and (as I've already mentioned) a kotatsu in the living room. I also found that the previous ALT's who lived here left an incredible amount of stuff, from furniture to space heaters to a hair straightener and even skis. Most impressive, however, was the sheer amount of school supplies they left: a huge storage bin full of things, and extras turning up in odd places all the time. There are so many things in here that I actually have to ask Mogi-san to get rid of some things for me or help me put them in storage for the next ALT.

The town is every bit as tiny as Google Earth made it out to be. The entire area is covered by rice paddies (now little more than muddy patches); even houses are relatively rare. I found out I also have a bike (as well as my itty bitty square car), so I'm excited to ride around town when the weather gets nicer.

Mogi-san invited me home with her for dinner, and I got another great surprise: she lives in a Buddhist temple. Her husband is a priest, so they live in a section of the very traditional building, complete with paper doors and silk cushions for followers to sit on. I've always wanted to know more about Buddhism, and now I have the perfect in! And you will all be proud to know that I ate (and enjoyed!) a Japanese meal, which included raw salmon and something that looked like a flesh cheerio, which Mogi-san described as "some part of a fish." First I conquer my fear of seafood; next, the world!

Drums keep poundin' a rhythm to my brain

I know you're all dying to hear what exciting hi-jinks I got up to for my birthday yesterday, and I hope the anticipation was worth it, because I started off the day brilliantly: with 5 hours of training followed by 2 hours of health exams. People found out it was my birthday somehow (I'm sure it had nothing to do with my undercurrent of murmured, "It's my birthday" 's) and reacted in shockingly kind ways. My Irish roomie and all her friends dug around in their pockets and purses to make me a grab bag of presents, from a pencil and lip gloss to a card written on a piece of a cigarette carton. Later, one of our bosses made the whole group of teachers sing "Happy Birthday" to me--while I held my urine sample in something called a "pee pole" (I am NOT making that up) for the health check. And after the thorough health check (urine, height, weight, eye test, blood pressure, breathing test, echo cardiogram, blood draw, and chest x-ray)it was off to the pub.

I know, I know. A pub? I spent months' worth of salary to go to Japan so I could sit in a faux Irish pub?

I have no excuses, really, except that all the other teachers have a tradition of going there after training and it's really nice to lounge in the semi-dark atmosphere. Anyway, I was sitting in the pub surrounded by people I hardly knew, but liked--really, who can dislike anyone who digs around in their pocket trash to make you feel better on your birthday? And they again sprang "Happy Birthday" on me. They toasted me (another nice guy bought me a coke) and I found a piece of Japanese cake that we all shared, and we had the best time just sitting around and laughing. We might as well have been friends for years instead of days.

Today was our last day of training, and the day we had to pore through all our contracts. I found out one of my zone leaders is LDS, purely because he came up to me directly and said, "Are you LDS? You're from Utah, so I thought you were. I am too!" He then offered to help me find a ward/branch out here. I keep getting lucky like that with the people I meet; a day or so ago I met an English guy who lived in my prefecture for several years. He said he loved it there, and his enthusiasm fed my own until I hardly felt scared anymore. Still, today was so draining that by the end of it all I barely had enough spirit in me to even go to the pub, which is just as pathetic as it sounds. It was slow at the pub, too; I spent a while listening to a friend from Galway explain how he just came for a laugh and fully expects to be fired or to have quit within a week, which doesn't bother him in the slightest. His carefree attitude infects everyone around him, and even though his accent is tough to understand sometimes, he's always surrounded by people 'cus of that.

Everything changed when the pub started a dance party in the lower level, though. One supervisor made it his goal to get all of us on the dance floor, and if you knew how persuasive he could be you wouldn't even question whether he succeeded. Within minutes we were all dancing, most of us with very little skill but no shame to force us to hold ourselves in check. Immediately all barriers formed by language, culture, and rank were annihilated. We were bumping our hips with our supervisors one side and Japanese strangers on the other. We all cheered each other on, we all mimicked each others' moves, we all sang to the best songs. It was a mass of frenetic joy and I don't think a single one of us felt shy--the best send-off imaginable. For fun I started doing the dorkiest move I could think of: the one where you put one hand behind your head, forming a triangle with your arm, and lift the other leg up so your other hand holds on to your ankle and jerk your leg towards and away from your chest like some poor half-formed bird. I'm sure you've all seen it, but no one there had, and it was my ticket to 15 minutes of fame. Our supervisor started doing it, and a well-dressed Japanese couple started doing it, giggling and urging each other on like teenagers. I loved it. I loved every second of it. They made sure I was watching and cheering them on, and when they were done the gentleman led me in an impromptu ballroom-style dance, holding only the tips of my fingers. I was able to follow him alright (thank you, Social Dance 101) and at the end he even gave me an light hug that was more like a brush of collarbones.

Tomorrow I head out to Iide-machi to set up my apartment and begin the real work. If it's anything near as fun as training was, I don't think I'll ever want to stop.

Still Training

Ohayoo gozaimasu!

Training continues unabated 8 hours per day, and my emotions are rocketing around. It's just too weird to see myself as a real adult; wearing business attire every day and talking about my future as if I am responsible for it.

Viewing myself as an adult is made all the harder by the fact that our training sessions are reminiscent of the scene in "Hook" when one of the lost boys bounces a ball off Robin Williams's head and demands, "Play!" All we've done so far is learn how to clown around and draw kids into playing games. It's fun and deceptively simple, and I really like this attitude towards teaching; it's all about helping the students love the language, and nevermind their pronunciation or grammar. Our trainer is Cedric-sensei, an Indian from South Africa who is fluent in 5 languages. If I could make learning as enjoyable as he does, I doubt I'd need any other life goals to keep me satisfied.

The other teachers are a wide mix of nationalities, but most are from the U.S. or the U.K. We definitely stand out here, wandering around the hotel like a school of wide-eyed guppies (it's interesting how fast I've adjusted to seeing myself as part of a minority, and a funny-looking one at that).

Tonight the jetlag finally waned enough that I felt brave enough to go out into the city with my roomie. She and her friends settled down into a bar and started drinking and talking about bands that I'd never heard of. They were all so friendly, especially considering how quiet I was being...but I've just never been able to get into those kinds of discussions. I left after only an hour and did some minor shopping (I stand by my original assessment of Japanese chocolate) and had my very first conversation in Japanese with a woman on the bus! It was the best part of the night.

Arrival

So I'm in Japan! How crazy is that? I realized when I finally stepped off the plane that I always thought of Japan as being mythical in a way. I'd seen the pictures and heard the stories, but it all sounded too weird to be true. Now I can tell you all: it is true. Everything looks as if it should be intimidating; there are high tech machines that I've never seen before all over the place and everything is clinically pristine--I just bought a mysterious soda (I suspect it involves milk somehow, judging by the cows all over it and has "mooh, mooh" written in hiragana for a title) from a machine that appeared fully capable of beaming me onto the Enterprise for the low low price of 100 yen. All the staff members at the airport wore little masks, which gave me the distinct feeling that there was an epidemic of filth and I was the most likely cause. However, the people themselves were so unfailingly polite and soft-spoken that it was impossible to feel uncomfortable, even when I got lost in the middle of the airport and had to use my limited knowledge of kanji to navigate.

Future posts will be more cohesive, but for now I just want all of you to know that I arrived safely and am loving it so far. Some observations for the road (before my time online is up):

Most of the other teachers here are guys. What's up with that?

Most of the administrators are from some region of the UK. I guess the Japanese like their accents as much as we do. Speaking of which, the guy who picked me up at the airport said he learned everything he knows about America from American Idol. Uh-oh.

I saw a girl on the plane with a tattoo around her wrist of the dancing men. I don't know if they belong in some other context, but the place I recognize the dancing men from is a Sherlock Holmes story; they were used to represent letters of the alphabet. Now I dearly wish I'd memorized that code.

I had the best hot chocolate ever in Seattle. It had so many types of chocolate in it that I lost count, and represented about 1/2 of my recommended caloric intake. Awesome.

The flight was surprisingly painless, considering its length. I watched Whip It and was thoroughly entertained　by Drew Barrymore beating other girls up on roller skates.

Everyone was impressed that I packed so lightly "for a girl" and could carry all my luggage by myself. Guess pilates has done me some good.

There's no way I can compete with these people, looks-wise. Not only are they naturally blessed with glossy hair and flawless skin, but it seems mandatory to wear very sharp clothes. Seriously. This?
http://img59.imageshack.us/i/viczhou67pe.jpg/
This is what people look like ON THE STREETS. It's unnerving.

Time's up. Love you all, miss you already, thanks for everything, and I'll find a way to get in more consistent touch soon.