I went on the hunger strike yesterday for the Darfur genocide, and broke the fast at my Kocho sensei’s (school principal) BBQ. The sun went down, and the food went on the grill, and then: a feast! The Japanese style of BBQing is ‘always be grilling something’. They make small amounts of food all the time, so you get time to enjoy each dish. We started with skipjack and bonito sashimi (that students at my school caught using the school’s fishing ship), and moved onto grilled beef, chicken, and squid. The yakisoba came out last, and the beer flowed constantly.

Afterward, two teachers asked me if I wanted to go to a bar. I said sure and we went to a place around the corner. It turned out to be a hostess bar, which was a new experience for me. I had a gin and tonic and the two fellas ordered other drinks. Then, two women sat with our table and made conversation. I don’t know what to think about it. I felt a little uncomfortable in the situation, but it the custom has a long history in Japan.

I guess it’s what your enviroment exposes you to. I read a story from another ALT that said her students LOVED the smell of fresh fish (and she didn’t), but HATED the smell of pine (which she saw as pleasant). So, having a long history of something makes its people more accustomed to it.

Oh yeah! Japanese meals I’ve had now include a generous tablespoon of mayonaise. Order a bento, one of the things is mayo-based salad. A plate of food will have mayo as a dip. eew!

I had my first Japanese dream over the weekend as well. It was strange: my brain had people speaking in Japanese to me (and I still couldn’t understand), and I was reading some signs as I was walking around. My brian woke up exhausted. But, how exciting!

Camp was sweet. The place was right on a stoney beach, with Mt. Fuji in the background. The weather was sunny all time, and heaps of fireflies were out (a signal that autumn is approaching). It was an all girls school, in the end, but I think that’s better because you don’t really have the too-cool-for-this tendancy. All the students were vocal and active.

The first day was sorta slow because we were nervous and the students were nervous, but after that, people began to talk a lot more. Meals were fun - cafeteria style - so I got to sit and chat over fish and rice. Free time was spent playing outside or talking. The place had stilts and unicycles available, so I had a go at some balance challenges. Some students jumped on like they were pros. sugoi!

Each morning and each night, we had an all-camp assembly. Other schools using different parts of the building and our school met outside for a half hour twice a day for general announcements, speeches and flag raising/lowering. In the mornings, we’d do calethenics and that was rather cheesey, but most certainly bearable.

The overall format was group work on projects - TV commercials, skits, wish illustrating (where one was a big heart that said “I wish I was Joe’s wife”), speeches, and a cool scavenger hunt. I made some friends, and I get email from a few students now!

Over the weekend, I bombed down to Aroop’s house. He lives pretty close in Kanaya. We joined a JET soccer league, kicked the ball around a bit, and learned more about the tournament in Nagano in October. In Kanaya, we just chilled out. The night before a huge BBQ with about 70 JETs, and well, a lot of people feel obligated to like each other because we’re all on JET. (Like some folk feel about having to like and get along with and hang out with swing dancers because they swing dance too.)

He and I don’t really think along those lines, and we were quite happy to leave to discuss politics, jazz/music, and film. We watched Farhenheit 9/11 (he downloaded it with his broadband), and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (again with the BB), and we went out to a small pub. We stumbled around with our pidgeon Japanese, but made some small talk with the only other patrons present. It was quite liberating, and made me less shy to try and speak.

Now, I’m at school waiting for the rain to clear so I can go spray paint some posters for my self-introduction lesson I’m giving next week. Many questions have been answered by my supervisor, and my experiences at camp have really got me excited to teach and interact with the kids.

I should get my own broadband this week (fingers crossed). It would’ve happened over the weekend, but it turns out my name stamp (hanko) became smudged on the application. The bad stamp didn’t match the nice one at my bank, so the application was put on hold. I re-do it today.

This week saw me off to Kakegawa, for the final installment of training. Which really wasn’t training. About 2 hours of the 30 scheduled were useful. But, it was away, and with the other JETs. I made some friends that live close by, and there will be shinannegans in the future.

After the 3-day training fest, folks went to a bar in Shizuoka. It was great and small and had really good art. After about 3 hours, the bar sold out (completely dry), so we moved on to karaoke (what else would you do?). After 2 hours of nutsness, we pushed on to a final bar called “Our Boozer.” A pub owned by an Englishman. We watched the opening ceremony and cheered for the countries that were in our group (Canada, Oz, NZ, USA, UK, Jamaica).

The next day, I went home (crashed at a Jason’s in the city) and wandered around downtown Shizuoka. A festival was on, and under one of the tents, they had a taiko drumming arcade game tournament. It’s like Dance Dance Revolution, but with Taiko drumming.

That evening, my neighbors invited me for dinner, but I had already made a curry (I figured out my rice maker! huttah), so I said next time. They knocked again a few hours later and said they were having a few drinks, so I joined them. I was glad that they invited me again.

I met a few other teachers at the school that night - one was on the chef/food prep staff. I asked him to identify the mystery jars left by my predacessor and he said they were expired rice topping and marmalade. Nuts. But, he said he’d make some more for me!

And, my neighbors also offered to take me up to Mt. Fuji the next day. I was planning already to hike the mountain at the end of the month, but I didn’t want to refuse their hospitality. I was glad I said yes. We went to Fuji-yama, but the weather was raining, so we couldn’t see the top (nor did we want to climb).

Instead, we went to nearby waterfalls and a temple made for Mt. Fuji 400 years ago exactly. I cleansed my hands and mouth at the entrance using water from Mt. Fuji’s springs. Then, I dropped a Y5 coin in the prayer box, bowed twice, clapped twice, and bowed again (as instructed by Takahashi-sensei). It was a great experience. I felt a new wave of perpective wash over me as my skin tingled. I didn’t understand what I was doing, but taking part in such an ancient ritual really impacted me.

I bought them a gift melon the next day to say thank you (plus I burned a jazz CD). It was a watermelon and cost about $13. Fruit is prohibitively expensive here. But, the gift was nowhere close to good enough - they drove me, so they paid the tolls and petrol (about 100km), they bought my lunch, and showed me all over. I’m glad to have neighbor you talk to. It’s so different than in Boulder or Fort Collins.

I have a camp this week. But it’s not camping - not sleeping outside. Nope. This is a summer seminar for high school students who want to practice their English. They’re coming from Shizuoka and other parts along the coast on the train, and we’re taking a bus to the Yaizu Youth Center, where we’ll live for the next 3 days and 2 nights. They have games and skits and contests already organized; I get to play camp counselor! This should be a blast. I’m really excited.

So I’ve moved house on August 3rd… I’m in the flat that was meant to be mine. No more cubical concrete “Weekly Mansion”. I’ve spent heaps of time cleaning this past week, and now I’m nearly finished. Most surfaces were covered in a dirty soot kinda dust.

A strange thing about moving: I hung my clothes on hangers for the first time in over 8 months! All this time living out of a bag strikingly contrasts the extra effort it is to put a shirt or pants on a hanger. There are fewer wrinkles, tho, so that’s a good thing.

During the first weekend of August, I went to Shizuoka with Drew (my predacessor) to meet one of his friends and his successor (which turned out to be one of my roommates back in Tokyo). We ate and drank at the biggest beer garden I’ve ever seen, and it was on the roof of a department store (depato), so it afforded a good view of the metropolis.

I left early to take the train down to Fujieda to meet with other new ALTs and one of them was a guest DJ at a club we went to! It turned out his predacessor was a DJ there and gave Aroop (the new ALT’s name) some lime light. That night was the best night the club has had (ever) in terms of beer sales, so the owner said Aroop can use the club as he likes for parties! This will be good.

The following Sunday was the dinner with Fukushima-sensei, and I’ve written about that already.

The week was pretty bland - just nuts and bolts kinda stuff. Buying things for the flat, cleaning, cooking. But this past weekend was pretty good.

Friday night, I went down to Fujieda again to meet the other ALTs. We ate dinner at an Izakawa (a Japanese pub) and moved on to sing karaoke for 2 hours. You pay ￥1800 and you get your own room with your group and all the drinks you like for 2 hours. It was a great night, and Weezer was sung.

Saturday, one of my neighbors invited me to a BBQ down past Fujieda. As it turned out, there was a festival on and they were going to shoot fireworks. So, we ate great pieces of meat and veggies (grilled over a hibachi, of course) while watching fireworks light the sky. And: there were new kinds. One I remember exploded into bright pieces, and these pieces then spiraled around for a while before going out. It wasn’t the usual parabolic fall, no, it was crazy random movement.

The group at the BBQ was a few of the faculty at Yaizu, mainly ships crew, and their families. I listened to the conversation and occasionally picked up the topics of it, but never what was actually said. They were very friendly, tho, and I was grateful for the invite.

On Monday, I did two things I wouldn’t usually do:

(1) I bought a keitai (mobile phone). I choose Vodaphone (because it’s internationally more connected than the others), and the model was their camera-focused one. Sure, I could’ve gotten one that had a TV tuner on it, or one with a karaoke jukebox, but I wasn’t really going to use those types. So it was the camera phone. Plus, it has a touch pad part for choosing the menes (sorta like an iPod). The camera captures 2MP (which is almost as good as my Canon), and has a bright and clear half-million color LCD. I surfed the web on it yestderday, and found games on it that put GameBoy Advance to shame. There’s a full-on RPG on the thing! This is nearly too much. The best bit: the price. ￥800 (so about US$7).

(2) I ate at a McDonalds. For shame, for shame, but Hayashi-sensei described their teriyaki burger, so I had to give it a go. It was fine, and no harm done. But my five year record will take some time to break….

Last night, Hayashi-sensei and I ate a Okonomiyaki restaurant. Think pancakes meet pizza. You mix flour, egg, and other things (mine included cabbage, tuna, and cheese; Hayashi-sensei’s was beef) and grill it right in front of you on the in-table hot plate. When they’re finished, you put green nori, bonito fish flakes, and mayo on top, cut it up, and eat! Very tasty, very economical, and very easy.

Today, I leave on my first business trip. I take two trains to go to a remote training center (where I’ll stay for 3 days) for my final training as a new ALT. After this, it’s all on.

Finally, some more observations… Japan is the land of the mini. Everything is normal looking, but about 20% smaller. Food, cars, houses, roads, everything. It has a nice space-saving economy feel to it.

Japan is also the land of plastic wrap. I bought some toaster pizza, and each piece of toast was indidually wrapped inside the main wrapper. Every single thing is like this. 2 layers of plastic for household items and food.

Uh, at 7:30am each weekday morning, a song plays over some hidden PA system, probably remnants of the air raid sirens. This song, as far as I can tell, calls people to work (much like a church bell on Sunday mornings) where they start the company calisthenics. Stuff like stretches and jumping jacks. Everyone is outside doing this.

Corn is popular pizza topping.

Sarah-chan, thanks for the suggestion for refreshment and encouraging words! I had some of the sweet bean dessert last night, but just that by itself.

Hrm, life over here is a learning experience all the time. My brain keeps
trying to figure everything out. Having the reading ability of a 1st grader is quite frustrating: sure, you get some things, but most of it is gobledygook. I can also pick out the occasional spoken phrase or word, which makes things more choppy. Plus, these new keyboards at work are morphed: the old symbols have moved around (like the parens, the @, the ‘, the :, pretty much any non-alpha character).

Buying things is pretty stressful, tho. I can put things in a basket, go up to the cashier and then stare as she (it’s ALWAYS a she) prolly asks me if I found everything ok. I say “sum’masen, wakarimasen”, but even that isn’t understood. Luckily, the register displays the cost of the lot, because she rattles off the numbers too quickly. niman-sansen-rok’hyak’-gojyuu-kyuu. But, I have successfully purchased: simple groceries (juice, sushi bento, fruit, veggies), slippers for work, an umbrella, and other little neccessities (sp).

One good example of baka-gaijin: Friday night, I ate a bag of pasta sauce for dinner. That’s right, the bag had a picture of noodles and meat sauce, I squeezed it, and it felt like there were noodles inside. WRONG. But, I completmented it with a banana, carrot, and a Kittyland biscuit.

So first impressions: everything is CLEAN. No litter anywhere, everything put in its place. Incredibly ordered. It’s pretty humid here, but no worse than Iowa yet. The cicadias are loud. Everyone is pretty friendly so far, too.

I ate dinner with Fukushima-sensei last night. He’s the vice principal and an English teacher here. He made sushi and gohan, and I spoke pidgin Japanese with his wife, daughter, and son. But, it was a sweet time - Fukushima-sensei taught me to make sushi. He also instructs and judges Kendo (the wood sword fencing gig). He showed me his real katana, and the handle plates he had. Some of the plates were 400 years old!

This morning, I went to the port with Fukushima-sensei to see the launch of the fishing training vessel of Yaizu Suisan. The school owns a large ship (80m at least) to train its students in navigation, fishing, engineering (yay!), and other sea things. Today, it went out with one of the first year classes as a sort of ‘camp’. Since school isn’t in, the class went out as cruise for 2 nights! One of the crew took me on board and gave me a tour; I saw the engine room, the bridge, and the mess hall.