Japan in Bloom

It's days like today that remind me how lucky I am. Let me explain:

Japan, today.

I live in freaking Japan!

My house is literally right next to a scene like this. If I wanted, I could spend all day, every day, sitting under those trees. As it is, I am aware of the necessity of going to work, though, so I only spend my mornings, lunch breaks, afternoons, and evenings reveling in the beauty that is Japan.

It's okay, you have my permission to be jealous. I probably would be, too, if I were you and not me.

The only sad part about this is that the cherry blossoms don't last. They finally opened up about a week ago and already the blossoms are beginning to fall. In fact, if you look closely you can see some of them scattered on the ground in the picture above.

In a way, however, the short-lived nature of cherry blossoms adds to their beauty. There is so much anticipation of them and then, when they finally open up, their beauty can only be experienced for a short time. They begin to fall only a week after so much glory, leaving bare limbed trees to stand alone for the next eleven and a half months.

This also is very revealing about Japanese views of beauty. That which highlights the fragile things, the things that you only get to experience for a short time, is the beautiful thing. This is reflected all over the place in Japanese culture. Next time you go to see a Noh performance, or participate in a tea ceremony, or do any thing that is considered beautiful by the Japanese, remember the short-lived cherry blossoms. You may find a surprising parallel.

~Jeffles

A Night in an "Internet Cafe"

Last weekend I went to Kobe. That was kinda interesting. I saw a Chinatown for the first time since coming to Japan, walked by a weird fountain of dead babies clutching a pumpkin, and purchased an extremely fashionable bow-tie. But I kept thinking how much more awesome it would have been if it was warmer out. So when it's warmer, I'm gonna head back again and give it another try.

And then there was the whole lack of finding a place to sleep thing.

After a full day of wandering about from spot to spot, the six of us settled in for some food and beverage consumption. As per normal, this then progressed to a second bar. And from the second bar, we then went on to karaoke and two hours of all-you-can-drink, all-you-can-sing awesomeness. Before we knew it, it was 3 AM, we were all drunk (for the most part), and we were all exhausted. So we hopped on over to the nearby manga cafe, as planned, and set about reserving a spot for the night.

Oh. Hm. Maybe I need to explain something. Japan, just like most countries, has internet cafes. But they do them a little different here. In most countries, an internet cafe is just a bunch of desks with computers and chairs and you pay something like $1 or $2 for half an hour. Sometimes you get fancy internet cafes that cater to gamers who need a place to be their hardcore selves. In places like that, the lighting might be a bit different; they might have sodas for sale; the computers are top notch gaming beasts; and, of course, you can become a member and pay special member rates.

In Japan, that would be considered a half-hearted internet cafe. At most internet cafes here, there are multiple levels of computer environment that you can reserve. The most basic of environments in which you can rent a computer for a time is the standard that I just described above for specialty gamer cafes. From there, it only goes up. At most levels up from there, you essentially rent a small, enclosed booth in which you can do whatever you want. And yes, people really do whatever they want. When I went to Kyoto, I stayed in the massage booth. The massage booths were slightly larger than normal booths, situated in a private, dimmed area, had blazing fast computers, and most notably, were equipped with obscenely comfortable, leather massage chairs. My friend and I rented ours for five hours, went to sleep, and woke up ready to face the day.

But there's more. In Japan, they're not called "internet cafes." They're called "manga cafes." That's because, on top of the computer cubicles, they also have rows upon rows of manga (Japanese comics). They also usually have unlimited free beverages, hot meals you can buy from vending machines, showers, and sometimes a spa room. In Japan, an internet cafe is not just an internet cafe, it's a fucking luxury retreat.

So this is what we thought we were getting in Kobe. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. The place had been completely booked up, except for three rooms, which we let the three girls take. Then us remaining three guys wandered about the city, searching for a place to rest our heads. The first stop was a capsule hotel, but they were completely full, too. Then we found another internet cafe, but they were totally full, too. Then we found yet another internet cafe. THEY were full, TOO! Except, wait! No, they did have a spot for us, if we didn't mind it...

"What is it? What is it?" We were pretty much desperate by this point.

It was... the basic option. The one that's just a long table with a bunch of computers and some chairs. Basic as it comes.

Fuck it. There wasn't anywhere else to go. Or, at least, we couldn't push ourselves to keep looking. So instead of a snazzy, cool place that you can't find anywhere else in the world, we actually slept in an internet cafe.

We put in our two hours, then got up and grabbed the first train back to Okayama.

And here I am. Been here ever since. Just whiling the time away until I've got someplace else to go to. I was going to go to Naoshima Island next weekend, but I just can't be bothered. Too cold and trying to figure out how to get there and back in time is too much of a pain. So I think I'm just gonna hang around town, study some Mandarin, maybe some economics. When it's warm again, that's when I think I'll start getting out and about.

I should be honest, it's not that cold. Even compared to Toronto, probably one of the warmest places in Canada, it's not that cold. The temperature hasn't gone below -8 Celsius, as far as I can remember, and even then it was night time. There's just something about Japan that makes it feel so much colder...

This time last year, I was getting ready for my JET interview. I remember that. I had just bought a new suit and was trying to figure out how to get to the interview without getting salt stains all over my suit from the snow drifts. Eventually I just tucked my pant legs into my boots and hoped for the best. I never have to worry about that kind of cold here. I haven't even had a moment where I thought "I need boots." It snows occasionally, but it certainly never sticks to the ground.

I guess I'm just a winter wimp. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

~Jeffles

P.S. My suit was fine. It survived the snowy encounter with nary a salt stain to be seen.

The Saga Continues

Hello! It's been a little while, but I haven't forgotten you, I promise. You probably want an explanation of some sort. Well, the truth is that I didn't particularly have anything to write about. Why? Because I was in North America! For just over three weeks, I was in the New World, and how can I post as Jeffles in Japan if I'm not in Japan?

I know, it's a poor excuse. I'll go slam my head into the wall of shame now.

Actually, that can wait until after this post. I only have about half an hour to write and a ton to say. I have been gone for a while, you know. (I should warn you, this post turned out pretty long. Beware, yo.)

First things first. I added a new link under the Other Cool People's Blogs section to the right: Hyperbole and a Half. I just discovered this blog thanks to my awesome friend Ela and you should all read it. It's seriously hilarious and I really want a pet Alot now.

On to the rest of the blog.

Something somewhat strange has happened to me, something certainly unexpected. As you may recall from my last blog post, I was not exactly keen to go back "home" for the holidays. And there was really a simple reason for that; I wasn't done with Japan yet. I'd done a lot, but there was still a lot left to be done.

Well, after I got home, I basically rolled around in bed for a while, wondering why I was waking up before the sun every morning and then reminding myself that I was on the other side of the world now, so that actually kind of made sense. To be honest, I don't remember much that happened in those first few days. Lots of eating, that much is clear. After a few days of vegging about and probably doing little other than watch crappy daytime television, I think I remembered the existence of English books. The New Year rolled around and I flew down to Florida to visit a friend for a few days before returning back North. Before I knew it, it was time to go back to Japan.

Summarized like that, it seems as if nothing happened and happened quickly. An unbiased observer might think, based on that description, that I was raging inside to go back. But as I said, a strange thing happened. As more and more time passed, I became more and more comfortable where I was. I noticed more and more things that I had missed while I was in Japan. Bookstores, for instance. And an actual variety of ethnic foods. And, of course, all the people back home that I haven't seen in a long time and won't see for an even longer time.

Some bad things stood out to me a lot more, too, but for the first time in my life, I think I actually started to feel a little homesick. By the time my little vacation was coming to an end, I was actually beginning to question what the hell I was doing. Why would I want to go back to Japan? Why would I want to leave all this behind? There are people there, good friends of mine, that I will likely not see again for years. For some reason, that bothers me now.

That probably sounded a little cold. Maybe it is. Maybe I'm just a cold mofo with emotions like steel.

No, that's not right. I've just been traveling for a long time. Flying and moving house across the continent (and continents) on my own since I was thirteen and with the rest of my nuclear family even before that. Something you learn when you're moving all the time is that people lose touch with you. It's totally natural. And even if you do stay in some semblance of touch, the number of times you talk to each other will almost necessarily become smaller and smaller until you talk maybe once or twice a year. Why? Because people have lives. People have things to do and, if you're not around, then eventually you will be reduced to a minimal or non-existent part of their life. And they will be the same to you.

That sounds really bad, but it's not, really. Imagine spending the rest of your life pining after the things you've left behind. Now imagine being able to move on and live your life, unburdened by what you left behind. I think it's pretty clear which is the healthier alternative. And this is why, after about the age of eleven, I stopped bothering with homesickness.

Yet here I am, feeling the closest to homesick that I can remember feeling in a long, long time. It's fucking weird and I'm not sure I like it. But I also know that I don't want to lose what I've had there and I'm almost certain that I will. I think I like that even less. And given how little I even wanted to return home just a few weeks ago, that's really, really strange.

Still, as I said, it's healthier not to be pining, so I've developed a plan of action. I will, every single weekend, see the sights, be social, and enjoy the good things here. What matters is where I direct my focus and my focus should be forward. A backwards focus leads to that aforementioned pining, which is totally uncool. Do you think Blade has a backwards focus? Nuh-uh. No way. That dude is way too cool to pine.

So tomorrow I'm going to Beppu for the weekend, which is this cool little town on the eastern shore of the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. That was a complicated description. Just click on the link, you'll see what I'm talking about. Anyway, it's famous for onsen (hot springs) and that's something I've been wanting to do since before I came to Japan, so I'm gonna bloody do it and I'm gonna bloody enjoy it.

As for the saga of the heater, there have been continued developments. Basically, my heater has continued to not really work. It goes on for about five to fifteen minutes, then shuts off and flashes lights at me. I've been told that when those lights flash in that particular combination and rhythm, that indicates that the seventh layer of Hell has been penetrated and-- wait, no, that's something completely different. It just means that it's shutting off for safety reasons. The question, then, is what reason and how can it be fixed.

So after a couple months of putting up with that nonsense, I asked the office to do something about it. They sent over a guy last night who basically took the lid off, banged the crap out of the regulator box outside with his wrench, put the lid back on, and called it fixed. Apparently not enough gas was getting through the pipes, so he had to force the pipes back into place so that the gas could flow properly. Thus the bang-bang-bang of the wrench on the pipes. Though at the time it looked more like a caveman toying with a bomb in the only way a caveman could: with violence.

Anyway, much to my surprise, it seemed to be working. I stood around for about an hour and the heater was still running. Hurray! I quickly scrambled to facebook and declared my victory. But alas, I was premature. After running for about two hours, the damn heater stopped again. I promptly curled into an angry, grumbly, little ball and went to sleep.

In the morning I tried it again. At first it was back to its normal five or ten minutes of working and then stopping. After a couple tries, it stayed on for another two hours of glory. But this time I was wary. I knew better. I eyed the machine and let it run, thinking it might stop on its own. But it didn't. It just kept going. I wondered if maybe it really was fixed and just happened to need a little time. So I did a stupid thing then and tried to change the temperature. It was actually getting hot in my room and I wanted to turn the thing down. Apparently "down" means "off," though, because the bloody thing stopped working altogether. It is now back to going on and then off again every five or so minutes and I am back to rage.

Seriously. I am not made for cold weather. Whoever decided I should be Canadian made a grave error.

The next step in this saga is to go retrieve a large kerosene space heater from another foreigner living in town. I have approximately an hour and a half to accomplish this before I go to class and then to sleep and then to class again and then to Beppu. In other words, I have an hour and a half to accomplish this. The office has given up on my heater. It's fifteen years old and a piece of shit and they know it. The best they can now offer is a consolation prize of a heater that is probably going to be even more of a pain in the ass.

Why is that? Because the thing about kerosene heaters is that you can't just run them. You can't leave them on while you're sleeping and you can't leave them on while you're out. And every hour or so, you have to air out the room, thus letting all the cold air back in. This is because kerosene is toxic and will KILL YOU if you don't. Also, I get to go through the fun of finding out where I can buy kerosene, how much I need to buy, and what kind I need to buy, all in Japanese. Yay! I love winter!

I'll let you know how the rest of this saga unfolds.

~Jeffles (of the rage)

In The Frozen Tundra

Hi there everyone. Sorry for the lack of new post last Thursday. I do have a good reason, but I'll try to do two posts this week to make up for it.

What's my reason? Well, as I'm sure several readers know, there was a midyear conference to improve our teaching skillz. Did it work? Who knows. But then, it's not even midyear yet, so obviously the name is already a misnomer. Which means, of course, that the premise of the conference is suspect. If so, it follows that whether or not my teaching skillz improved may actually not matter. Emphasis on the possibility aspect.

Yeah, I know. That's a load of bull. Anyway, because of this conference I didn't have access to my computer last Thursday. You see, the conference lasted for three days (Wednesday to Friday), every evening of which involved a night time drinking adventure for me, and the last two evenings of which I didn't even make it back to my town. Try saying that sentence five times fast. Then, on Saturday, there was an end-of-year party hosted by one of my schools that I had to attend.

This all added up to an exhausted Jeffles with a liver pleading for mercy. I'm pretty sure the last couple weeks have knocked an equal number of years off my life. So yesterday was, essentially, a write off. Thus today is the first day I can actually post something here.

I'm trying to decide what to talk about now. The cold and my lack of heating? A story from the last four days? A deep account of how I feel separated from the world here? I don't know. So I'm gonna eenie-meenie-miney-moe it.

Here we go...

...

...The cold and my lack of heating it is!

This is going to sound like bitching, moaning, and general complaining. That's because it is. As probably anyone who knows me is aware, I'm a summer guy. Winter and cold times really aren't my thing. It is, in fact, the entire reason why I never want to live in Canada again. Enough of this winter crap, I'm ready for a lifelong summer. Starting now.

Of course, that's not going to happen. So my method of fighting off the winter is to crank up the heat at home, take lots of hot showers, and do my best to wear clothing that cuts the wind when I go outside. That and get drunk. Even if it does actually make you colder, it also makes you too numb to notice the cold.

But as I said, too much drinking lately, so that last option is currently out. And, thanks to god knows what, I am also unable to crank up the heat or take a hot shower. I arrived home after my short trip to Okayama City only to find that I had no working heater and no hot water. I don't understand why. They were both working fine before I left. They both use gas to heat up, though, so maybe something happened to the pipe? Froze over or something? I don't know. I'm gonna ask one of the office people about it tomorrow.

So after spending one night freezing my ass off, I went out yesterday to equip myself with the items necessary to use my kotatsu. For those who don't know, a kotatsu is basically a table, a heater, and a blanket to keep the heat in a limited space. Think of it as like turning your table into a pillow fort and keeping it heated inside. (Yes, that's what I'm thinking every time I use it.)

While I was still in the kotatsu, it was very nice. Very nice indeed. But then, of course, I eventually had to go to bed. That was okay, because I was still feeling quite toasty. But waking up in the morning was TERRIBLE. There was no escape. I could see my breath inside my own damn house. Nothing quite like getting changed into cold clothes when you're already cold.

For a little while, I was wondering just how I would shave. As many of you probably are aware, I'm kind of a hairy guy. If I go to work without shaving, that don't look good. Hell, even in high school my teachers wouldn't let me get away with not shaving for a day. And believe me, I tried. So this morning I boiled some water, poured it in the sink, and used a hand towel dipped in the sink to soften my face. It also worked pretty well for the razor (shaving with a cold razor SUCKS). So this is a good thing to keep in mind for the future.

I'm really hoping that this lack of heating and lack of hot water doesn't last all winter. I'd really like to take a shower at some point. Deodorant can only work for so long...

There ends my complaint. Japan is cool, but they need to get their winter equipment sorted out. I fear things are only going to go further downhill from here. But that may just because I have to leave this warm room and go back to a cold home in a few short minutes.

Sigh.

~Jeffles

P.S. Gonna try to put up a new video tonight. I'll edit that link in later.

Where have all the humidities gone?

It's been getting chilly here. Kinda surprising how fast it happened, to be honest. I still remember quite vividly the heat and humidity of the summer. Hell, I wrote about it. You probably remember it. Seems like one week it was summer, then the next week the humidity was gone and the temperature just started rolling downhill from there. Every day is a degree colder. Every day I have to wear just that little bit more to stay at my ideal temperature.

Actually, in order to maintain that aforementioned ideal temperature with those aforementioned clothes that I have to wear, I recently went on a bit of a shopping spree. Uniqlo (a "budget" clothes store spread all throughout Japan that has Western sizes) was having a sale. And I needed new clothes. The loot is as follows

- lightweight, but excellently effective windbreaker/rain coat

- two pairs of black chinos (for work)

- a dark grey sweater (also for work)

- two long sleeve shirts (still for work)

And the total price was... I'm not telling. Even with everything on sale and it being a "budget" place, it was still all expensive enough that I'm almost ashamed to have spent that much. I did actually need that stuff, though. I didn't have enough long-sleeve shirts, I didn't have a single sweater or vest or warm thing I could wear to work, and all the black pants I brought with me are unusable. I did have one pair of pants that could have worked, but as they're half of a rather expensive suit, I wasn't very keen on using them.

Yes, that really is what I tell myself to justify the moneys.

Anyway, afterward I splurged on candy from the Sweet Factory (zomg real candy in Japan! real, squishy candies!). Then I headed downstairs to the new import store (sells foreign goods) and got a few Belgian beers and Californian wines. Expensive, but 100% worth it.

Why worth it? Well, because it's not that easy for me to get stuff that I was used to in North America. Like good wine and good beer, both of which I am absolutely a lover of. I can get the stuff, but it takes a fair amount of time and effort and travel. So when I do get it, I am quite pleased.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good substitutes. I'm learning to appreciate the different sake available. And I've learned that, for the most part, people don't really say sake. Sake is nihonshu (often translated to me as Japanese wine). It's made from rice and damn it goes down smooth. I prefer it cool or at room temperature rather than warmed up, personally. "Sake" is just a catch-all term for alcohol in general.

But there isn't just nihonshu, there's also shochu, which is a clear distilled beverage kind of like vodka with a lower proof. Well, sometimes it can be 40% like vodka, but it usually comes in at about 25%. Anyway, I mention shochu because it can be really hard to tell the difference between shochu and nihonshu without drinking it. The labels are confusing, because they often display the type of shochu or nihonshu without saying that it's shochu or nihonshu, and I don't already know the different types. So a lot of it ends up just as a guessing game at the supermarket.

Anyway, enough rambling about that. The point is that I have found other alcohols to explore and learn about so as to distract me from the lack of familiar alcohols. And the same goes for the lack of good pizza, good French food, good Chinese, etc. And yes, there really is a lack of good Chinese food. There isn't a single Chinese restaurant in my town and I have found a total of 1 Chinese restaurant in my prefecture. For shame, Japan. For shame.

At any rate, I have now acquired warm clothes and alcohol that I know something about. As far as I'm concerned, I'm all set for whatever Japan has to throw at me now. In fact, one of my fellow teachers mentioned that she knew of a good wine bar in nearby Fukuyama, so we will hopefully check that out soon. Hooray, wine! Hooray!

I am way too excited about this. I swear I'm not an alcoholic. I just appreciate quality drinks.

This weekend I'm headed to Nara. Actually, we couldn't find a place to stay in Nara itself, so we're staying in Osaka and then heading into Nara for day trips, but I'm okay with that. Looking forward to playing with some deer. :D

And that's about all I got. It's Thanksgiving in the US right now. My American friends here in Japan are all lamenting their missed holiday right about now, but I have to say, I've never really felt particularly attached to that holiday. It always felt like such an arbitrary, silly day to me. Why pick one day to be thankful? It's almost like an excuse to not be thankful the other 364 days of the year. And why that day? There were plenty of other thanksgiving feasts that were held at different times.

Re: History.com - "For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November."

Perhaps I'm just a weird Canadian/Mexican who doesn't believe in the value of nationalism. Or maybe Thanksgiving really is weird. I dunno. Here's my blog, you decide.

~Jeffles

The Daily Bread

Hey, been a while. How's things? Wife and kids doing alright? Good, good...

Good god. Let there never be a day when I actually say those things in earnest.

It's interesting that when I sit down to write these blog entries, I often find it difficult to actually think of things to write about. This is interesting because it's not as if I have nothing to write about. Quite literally, every single day is packed. I don't have one weekend to myself this month and I haven't had a weekend to myself since coming to Japan two months ago. Already, next month's weekends are getting taken up.

Yeah, that last one's gonna be a bit of a problem. You see, I've been planning for a while to take part in NaNoWriMo. For those of you too lazy to click though the link, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Frankly, the name is a bit of a misnomer; it's actually quite international.

At any rate, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (that's November 1st to November 30th). Whip out your calculator, please. Yes, you are quite correct, those numbers mean that any bright-eyed NaNoWriMo Writer must churn out a paltry 1,667 words a day. Me being the busy bee that I am, I'm aiming for 2000 words a day. That should give me a buffer of 5 days to slack off-- I mean, 5 days in case of emergency.

Alternatively, I could just write an extra 10,000 words. But let's be serious here.

This word count means that time is of the essence. It's not easy to write 2000 words a day. And it's even more difficult to write 2000 good words a day. That takes time, which the prospective writer does not exactly have a lot of. When, further, weekends and weeknights are being snatched from the writer's grasp by hungry socialites, life suddenly becomes very difficult.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Perhaps I just wish to illustrate the insanity involved in this task. Perhaps I'm indulging in a bit of that self-loathing that I keep hearing people like to sometimes do. Well! Enough of that. I will conquer this task and I will become the next Earnest Hemingway and Luke, I am your father.

Sorry, got a bit carried away there.

Recently, the temperature has dropped significantly. I'm talking 20 degrees, plus the sudden absence of humidity, and just within the last two weeks. Suddenly I'm wearing sweaters, long pants, and jackets to work. It feels like just yesterday I was sweating through both my undershirt and work shirt without even moving. As I am a staunch opponent of cold weather, this is frightening to me. But the bright side of this is momiji (the autumn change of the leaves' color).

This weekend is a long weekend due to that most sacrosanct of Japanese holidays: Health and Sports Day. As a result, I'm heading to Kyoto with a fellow ALT from my town. Kyoto, the cultural center of Japan, is particularly known for its momiji. Around here, the world is still largely a verdant green. But there are signs of change. The rice fields have turned into a thousand pools of sunny yellow. Scattered across the bike paths are dead, fallen leaves. Things are changing. My hope is that in Kyoto, momiji has begun.

I'll let you know later how it goes. 'Till then, take care. And don't forget to feed the children. They need their daily bread, you know.

~Jeffles

Expectations

Japan has spoken and I have listened.

"Jeffles! Stop trying to predict me!"

Ah yes, Japan. I hear you loud and clear. How could I not? Your voice surrounds me, quite literally.

A week ago, the forecast claimed that it would be raining in Okayama and Osaka until further notice. It did indeed rain the first day. And at first glance, I thought the second day might follow suit. Instead, however, the skies cleared and I sweated my proverbial skin off.

You see, a typhoon was headed for Japan. And based on the predicted path, it would be slamming straight into Okayama. (I was planning a vacation to Osaka that weekend and took the liberty of actually researching this.) Of course, the typhoon soon changed its mind, took a breath, and slammed into the eastern half of Japan instead. You have may heard about it. In fact, it is apparently still throwing up rain in parts of Japan. Here in Okayama, though, it's been all sunshine and peaches.

That's not exactly true. The temperature has dropped some 10 - 13 degrees Celsius and winds are stronger than normal. But on the balance of things, that's not so bad.

And for those who are wondering, yes I did go to Osaka! And yes, it was wonderful. Wonderfully wonderful, in fact. I shall be heading back at a later date. I had the confusing experience of getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and ants in the middle of the city, but otherwise I quite enjoyed it. There was a danjiri festival, which I of course took copious photos of. There was the eating of shaved ice. There was shopping in a store where all the employees were dressed as ninjas. And much more! I didn't make it to the castle or the Shinto shrine which is said to be the oldest in Japan, but I am planning to be back in Osaka later in October. At that time, the leaves should be changing color and I quite look forward to it.

This weekend is another three day weekend. That's right, two three day weekends in a row. Praise be to Japanese holidays. My plan is to go to Miyajima (an island with the famous red floating torii gate) for Friday and then Shiraishi Island on Sunday for the Moooo Bar's end-of-season party. Yay island time.

That's all for now. Off to the night-class! Wheeeee~

~Jeffles

The Day of the Insects

Before coming to Japan, I was warned. The country, especially in the south, had a problem with bugs. That is to say, bugs of the worst sort claim the country as their own. The fact that there are also humans nearly everywhere has apparently been no deterrent. One might even say that it encouraged them.

Where I live, the south, is prime territory for an encounter. For instance, in the entrance to my apartment (the outside entrance, not the inside) are three large spider webs. And I seriously mean large. Each web is the size of a grade school child. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that such a child hasn't previously been caught in one of these webs. I allow them to live, however, because they are preferable to the hordes of flies and mosquitoes that the webs' residents consume every day.

There are two bugs in particular that I was warned about: the mukade and the suzumebachi. Each one is devilish in its own way. The first, the mukade, literally looks like a demon. It's a giant, red centipede with pincer-like horns (in addition to its actual pincers) and a black exoskeleton that looks like demonic armor plating. I have not yet met with one of these creatures and I hope that I never will.

Here in Japan, summers are hot. Really hot. Mostly, it's the humidity that gets you, but things are made even worse by the fact that use of air conditioning is frowned upon. At home, I don't care. I use it anyway, or else I would be constantly sitting in a pool of sweat. I love the heat, truly I do. But I don't love sitting in a pool of my own sweat, soaking through my shirt, chair, and rug. I've been in hot places before, even hotter places than Japan, but I've never sweat so much in my life. It's like being in a sauna everywhere you go.

Anyway, all of this is to say that classrooms, with around 30 hot bodies in them, get very hot in the summer without air conditioning. So people tend to keep the windows open and make liberal use of fans. The idea is to get a cross-breeze going.

Bugs often will fly in and out of the room. Butterflies seem to be the most common of these. A couple days ago, though, something else entirely flew in. And worse yet, it couldn't seem to find its way out again.

At first, I thought it was a bee. Every bug that you know of back home is larger in Japan, so it was probably just a large bee. So went my thought process. And, I figured, it was probably just passing through. Wait a minute and it would be gone. Well, three minutes later, it wasn't gone. Worse still, the entire class had ground to a halt. The teacher seemed paralyzed and the students, well, the students had essentially become a screaming mob.

I realized that, just like the teacher and the students, I was doing nothing about the situation. Was I going to be scared of a creature that I am 1000x the size of? Was I no different from a third grader? Well, put like that, I decided it was time for action, time for a gaijin smash. There didn't seem to be a fly swatter of any sort, so I grabbed the text book. I would have used my hand, but I wanted to avoid getting stung. This turned out to be a smart idea.

The bug flew near me and I swung my textbook, but missed. The students screamed as one as they realized what I was doing. "Stupid gaijin, aggravating the giant insect!" they seemed to say. Well, I thought, if I don't do it, then it ain't gonna leave. So I chased it to a window on the other side of the class room. As I continued to swat at what I thought was a giant bee, I finally understood the babbling of the students. They had been saying "suzumebachi."

Now, let's pause here for a moment and head over to wikipedia. What does it have to say about the suzumebachi? First of all, it clearly points out that this insect is not a bee, it is a hornet. An Asian Giant Hornet, to be exact. More importantly, however, it says that "Each year in Japan, the human death toll caused by Asian giant hornet stings exceeds that of all other venomous and non-venomous wild animals combined, including wild bears and venomous snakes." Yeah, that's right, the suzumebachi is deadlier than wild bears and venomous snakes.

A few more points from the wikipedia page for your perusal:

1) Its venom is potent enough to kill you even if you're not allergic to it.

2) Its venom is potent enough to dissolve human tissue.

3) Due to the fact that its mandibles are so incredibly large, it can bite and sting you at the same time.

4) It is a hornet, so it can sting you as many times at it wants, just in case it wasn't satisfied the first time around.

5) When it stings you, the chemicals in its venom attract other suzumebachi, so now you get to deal with a whole horde of them instead of just one.

So I think you'll understand why, when I heard the word "suzumebachi," I dropped the textbook and went for a weapon with a slightly larger reach. A fellow teacher passed me a broom and I wondered why no one had given me one earlier. I guess fear is to blame for that, too. Anyway, I eventually managed to trap the killer hornet behind a glass pane and slowly push it outside.

I returned to the front of the class, unharmed and a hero to thirty-odd third graders. Later that day, I noticed that my preying mantis friend had returned to my bike basket. It made me glad to know that he was safe. After all, suzumebachi like to eat those guys too.

~Jeffles

When One Week is Two and Typhoons Ruin ALL Your Fun, Blog About It!

I've been teaching now for about a week, but somehow, it already feels longer. I have to wonder why this is? Perhaps it's been so boring that I feel like I've been thrust into some sort of rut from which I can't get out? After all, they say that time flies when you're having fun, and obviously time is not flying.

I don't think that's it, though. After all, I'm not bored. Seriously, not even in the least. In fact, I feel almost as if I've been run off my feet. Every class I've been to is completely different from the others and requires a different approach. Add that on to the fact that I have eight different schools and hundreds of kids' faces and names to memorize. Whoever said that Japanese kids are all the same obviously had no idea what he or she was talking about. And then there's the travel time (by bike, of course) between schools and Judo classes on top of that. It's exhausting.

Furthermore, contrary to my earlier statement, time actually does fly. In class, I can't help but feel as if I don't have anywhere near enough time to present everything. As well, I constantly feel as if I need more time to prepare myself for class, both mentally and physically. And I'm always wondering if I'm going to actually make it to class in time. It's as if I actually don't have enough time in the day.

Yet, when I'm lying on the floor at home, I look back on everything that happened and I think to myself, "Wow, that was a long day." I think about how much I accomplished and wonder if it all really happened in only a few hours. I think it is this that my sense of an elongated work week is derived from. I am doing so many things that it seems as if each day was actually two days. Apply this to a week full of wide-eyed first-encounters and we end up with an exhausted Jeffles who feels as if two weeks have been packed into one. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't see this coming.

In other news, a typhoon passed through the country over last weekend. As it's Thursday, this is old news. But it hasn't been mentioned on this blog, so it ain't old news here! Also, it was my first typhoon, so it deserves mention.

The storm landed on Friday morning. Friday was also my first day of school. Because of the typhoon, though, they crammed all my classes into the morning and told me to head on home after lunch. First day and things are already interesting! (I'm also fairly certain that I fended off two kancho attempts, speaking of interesting.)

The bike ride home, normally a 20 minute affair, took nearly twice as long due to the wind and rain. I had to stop two times, just to catch my breath, and am fairly certain that I would have actually made it home faster if I were walking. Thanks to that ride, I decided that there was no way I was leaving my home until the storm had passed. As it turns out, I had actually been biking home at what was essentially the worst time of day to be out.

I wasn't so lucky as to actually be able to stay inside all weekend, though. I couldn't even stay inside all day. That night was the welcome party for the new ALTs in my town (of which I am obviously one). So out I went again, though luckily the wind and rain had temporarily died down. Thinking luck was on my side, I decided to bike to the meeting spot. Bad decision.

The party itself was great. We each gave short speeches in broken Japanese to much applause, then proceeded to consume vast quantities of both food and booze. I personally spent much of the night attempting to communicate with my fellow Japanese workers to varying degrees of success. When the first party finished, we then moved on to the second location, a karaoke lounge that apparently the party had rented out. The fooding and boozing continued, of course, until I was well past tipsy.

This is when my bad decision became obvious. During the course of 5 or so hours, the typhoon's fury had returned. I had a choice to make; either bike back through the wind and rain and drunken haze, or leave my bike out in the elements and have to go pick it up the next day, when the typhoon was expected to be ever stronger and I would be in the full grip of a terrible hang over. It was a lose-lose situation.

"Let's get this over with," I thought, and proceeded to bike home. As I don't actually remember the bike ride home, I would like to believe that I made the right decision. After all, what you can't remember can't hurt you, right? Ahem...

Anyway, I stayed inside for the rest of the weekend. We ALTs had been planning to take part in a tea ceremony on Saturday, but seriously? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

By Sunday morning, the typhoon had gone and taken all its bad juju with it. Since then, the skies have been clear and the winds have been delightfully light. The mornings and evenings are starting to get cool, though. It looks like Fall is on its way.

~Jeffles

The Land of Sunshine

I've been in Japan for three weeks now and every single day has had the following routine: wake up, look outside, see the sun, feel the heat, drown in the humidity, turn on the AC. Of course, since I actually can't get enough of the heat and humidity, I should probably be using verbs that indicate the pleasure I have been lucky enough to experience over the last three weeks. In my ideal world, I would be living in a tropical paradise for thirteen months out of the year. Yes, you read that right. Thirteen months out of the year.

Speaking of tropical paradise, you may recall me mentioning Shiraishi island. There's also a little bit about Shiraishi on my youtube channel. Please excuse the shameless self-promotion. Anyway, when I was on Shiraishi with the Okayama Orientation group, I made plans with another JET (whom I shall call Snowman) to go back to the island. We were only there for a few hours, you see, and because we were technically still on the clock, we weren't allowed to drink alcohol. So it made sense to return at a later date.

The date we picked was the weekend of the 20th and 21st of August. It was the first free weekend we had, fell right after payday, and was still summertime. It was, we agreed, ideal. So a few days later, I sent off an email and made reservations with a minshoku hotel near the beach (and the bar).

And then, about four days ago, I checked the weather forecast. Would you guess it? It was forecasted to be raining all weekend long. Of course, it would start Saturday morning and finish Sunday evening. Three weeks of no rain and suddenly, right when I want to actually use the sunshine, this happens.

As it so happens, the weatherman was right on. It came down on us like a game of whack-a-mole. And then, half an hour after arriving back in the apartment that I call home, the rain stopped. Sigh.

Snowman did not particularly enjoy the rain. In fact, I would say that it put something of a damper on his entire weekend. I didn't particularly enjoy the rain either, but I wouldn't say that it completely ruined the weekend. Sure, I didn't get to sit in the sun, go kayaking, or play frisbee in the water. But I did get to sit at the bar and crack jokes with fellow foreigners until the sun went down. I did get to see the islands of the Seto Inland Sea wreathed in a fog. And I did get to watch fireflies glow like tiny, blue LEDs as the nighttime waves rolled in.

I noticed, too, that the locals seemed not to care much that the world had suddenly turned grey. Snowman and I went to a place for lunch that served cheese curry. By the way, cheese curry is delicious. Especially for all you Poutine lovers out there, I highly recommend it. At any rate, the place is run by a family that goes to Shiraishi for the summer, but lives in Tokyo during the rest of the year.

The family had a cat and their cat was hilarious. Not that it actually did anything to warrant that descriptor; I'm calling it hilarious because of its face. It was completely flat and disproportionately tiny, especially in comparison to its eyes. After seeing those eyes, I understand anime so much better. Even more hilariously, though, it had what looked like a bushy white mustache. Most of its fur was grey and shaggy, except for its muzzle, which was bright white. The whole package reminded me of a perennially startled, disheveled professor. Probably a professor of Confucian philosophy, but don't quote me on that.

Discounting the cat, which surely belongs to a group of its own, the family consisted of a mother, a daughter, and a son (though the son may have been a boyfriend, I'm not too sure). Not one of them showed a single sign of displeasure at the weather. In fact, I can't think of a moment when there wasn't at least one person smiling at something. Most of the time, they chatted jovially, smoked on their porch, and played with the cat. Even Snowman and I were drawn in as we consumed their cheesy curry-goodness. For the time we were in that ramshackle little building, negativity had no place.

If there's one thing I can take from my weekend, it's this: don't waste time being negative. If something unexpected happens, oh well. There's fun things to be found, too. Look to those things and enjoy them. I haven't been in Japan very long, so I can't say for certain, but that attitude seems very prevalent and I'd like to imagine I can attain it too.

Thus: the rain was unexpected, yes, but I did enjoy my time on Shiraishi. In fact, the owners of the Moo Bar mentioned an end-of-the-season party in which attendees would have the task of drinking the bar dry. It's supposed to take place on the last weekend of September. So I expect I'll be back again, rain or shine... though a little bit of shine would nice.

~Jeffles