Blog Moved!

Hi there everyone.

Sorry to have left you all stranded in the cold, erm, 5 months ago. If you want a reason, I'm sorry, but I can only offer a sad excuse.

You see, I was approximately two months away from leaving Japan for good and I just couldn't find it in my heart to continue writing about Japan. It felt wrong. Especially when the majority of things I wanted to write about were things that had nothing to do with Japan. And clearly, this was not the place to do that.

At any rate, I have finally begun a new blog. If you like, you can consider it the chronicles of a post-JET. That is, after all, essentially what it is. I have been back state-side for two months, after all.

Oh right, I live in Boston now. Hey, that's cool, eh?

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that, if you should so desire, the journey continues on... here.

That's all, folks.

~Jeffles

On the Shimanami Kaido

Hello again, sorry for the absence last Thursday. I wish I had an explanation, but I can't actually think of why I didn't post anything. Probably just got too caught up in life.

At any rate, I have an adventure to relate to you. That shall the meat of today.

But first, a little geography lesson. If you look at a map of Japan, you will notice that Japan is, in fact, not a single island. It is four islands. From north to south, they are Hokkaido (北海道), Honshu (本州), Shikoku (四国), and Kyushu (九州).

Japan.

You may also notice that there are four large bodies of water surrounding Japan. The Sea of Japan, the Pacific Ocean, the Philippine Sea, and the East China Sea. However, there is one sea which has not been mentioned or marked on the map: the Seto Inland Sea (瀬戸内海 Seto Naikai). The Seto Inland Sea, as you can observe on the wikipedia page I linked, is the body of water which lies between the large island of Honshu and the smaller island of Shikoku.

Last weekend, I attempted to bike across this sea.

No, I am not Jesus. There happens to be a route called the Shimanami Kaido that hops from island to island, taking you from Onomichi City (in Hiroshima prefecture on Honshu) to Imabari City (in Ehime prefecture on Shikoku). In between the two cities are six bridges, six islands, and approximately 80 kilometers. As the page I linked to you shows, you can also go from Shikoku to Honshu; it's a two way route. As my home prefecture happens to be on Honshu, we decided to start on Honshu and work our way south.

In my examination of the route in the days leading up to the adventure, I was put under the impression that the route was an easy and fast one. I also discovered that the average biker travels at a speed of 18 to 24 km/h. That means, assuming I travel on the low end I should have been able to complete the 80 km route in just over four hours. And indeed, I had read that people traveling at a leisurely pace had completed it in 8 hours. Definitely something that could be done in a day.

Or so I thought.

Turns out it was a much tougher bike ride than I'd been expecting. Part of the problem was, I think, that I was unfamiliar with the kind of bike I was riding. It was too small for me (a common problem here in Japan) and had these things called "gears" that I couldn't figure out. Add to that several long slopes, a very hot sun, and killer pollen... the bike ride took longer than I thought it would.

More or less exactly how I felt.

We met at the train station in Onomichi at about 10:30 in the morning, grabbed a couple of sandwiches, and set off for the bike rental shop. (We did not bring our bikes with us on the train. And I wouldn't want to anyway, because my personal bike for getting around town is frankly a piece of crap.)

The shop itself was very conveniently located. It was, in fact, pretty much right next to the dock. (You have to take a ferry to get from Onomichi to the first island. The only available bridge is for cars only.) To get there from the train station, you first take a right on exiting the station. Then follow the road on your left hand side (there will be buses galore) until you can't walk any further without crossing a road. Cross the road and turn right. Keep walking until you see a parking lot on your left-hand side. In the parking lot, at the opposite end, is the bike rental shop. For a ￥500 (~$6) fee plus a ￥1000 (~$12) deposit, you can rent any bike you like for a day.

But be warned, the bikes are a little bit on the small side. If I placed my foot on the pedal such that the middle of my foot was on the pedal, then turning the front wheel would actually jam the wheel onto my foot. As a result, I ended up biking with the balls of my feet for pretty much the whole way. Sigh.

Other than that, though, I was quite happy with the bikes. Mine had 8 gears and a solid feel. The seat was a bit narrow for my comfort, but it was no big deal, and if I'd been paying attention, I certainly could have chosen a bike with a wider seat.

So, by the time we bought our sandwiches, rented our bikes, got on the ferry, arrived at the first island, and got off the ferry, we had killed a full forty-five minutes. It was now about 11:15 and we were just getting started. This may have been the real reason we didn't make it as far as we'd hoped.

Nonetheless, convinced of our own prowess, we hopped on our bikes and went. The first thing that struck us was how incredibly gorgeous the island was. Especially once we got out of the center of the island and to the shore. The sea opened up before our eyes and before I knew it, I had my video camera in hand and the record button pressed beneath my thumb. Hopefully, I can find the time to put together a video, because that place was... stunning.

Biking on the shimanami kaido.

After the first bridge, which took us to Innoshima, we stopped near a giant dinosaur statue and had our lunch on the beach. No, I'm not joking. When you get off the bridge and go down the hill to your right, you'll soon see a large, white brontosaurus rising off in the distance. It stares at the sea, seemingly dreaming of a day when it will lift its plaster feet and walk among the waves. In the meantime, however, it contents itself with letting children climb all over it.

Having scarfed down our food and had a giggle at the Japanese people diving into the water in their underwear, we decided it was time to get back on the road. Well, mostly I decided. My eyes had turned into tiny balls of pure itchiness and my nose wouldn't stop sneezing. For whatever reason, though, my hayfever seems to disappear once I get moving. So back to the bike it was. By this time, it was about 1 PM.

We continued biking for another two hours, crossing the kuchi bridge and finding ourselves craving ice cream on ikuchujima. Thankfully, my ever trusty travel companion Clara happens to possess something akin to a radar for ice cream. When its presence is near, a blip goes off in her head and her eyes take on the glow of far-off starlight. She guided us to our ice cream and, again with much sneezing, my hunger was sated.

By this point, it was about 3:00 PM. We continued along the island road and found ourselves at a museum called the Ikuo Hirayama Museum of Art. This is a museum dedicated entirely to the work of a single artist: Ikuo Hirayama. It was a pretty nice museum, but nothing too spectacular in my opinion. I was far more captivated by the Kosanji Temple and Hill of Hope.

The temple.

I have seen nothing like this in Japan. The temple is clearly Japanese, yet there are so many Chinese influences at the same time. It's full of incredible colors and exquisite detail. Every part of every structure is adorned with decoration and everywhere you look, there is vibrancy.

Then, at the top of the complex, is this extraordinarily peculiar environment. The hilltop is covered in carved marble blocks. The whiteness of it is so bright I actually had to wear my sunglasses just to watch where I was walking.

The Hill of Hope.

I feel like my words don't do the place justice. Well, perhaps there are no words that can do the place justice. It is simply that astonishing.

After wandering around the complex for about 45 minutes, we decided that the best thing we could do at this point was catch a ferry home. It was only 4 PM, but with the ferry ride and the train ride, the return trip home would easily add several hours to that. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but it was a Sunday and I had to go to work the next day. In fact, I didn't end up getting home until after 9 PM. Oh, the joys of living in the inaka.

So I didn't quite make it across the Seto Inland Sea. But I made it about half way and, all considered, I'm pretty happy with that. I got a nice (farmer's) tan out of the adventure, too.

If I have the chance, I would like to try and do it again. Maybe spend the night on one of the islands and then finish the trip the next day. And if you get the chance, I would highly recommend you give it a go. For the scenery, if nothing else, give it a go.

That's it for this week. See you later.

~Jeffles

Zombies, run!

Hello. I don't have any particularly interesting stories for you today.

(Okay, strictly speaking that isn't true. I just am trying to preserve the dignity of everyone involved in all the stories that I COULD tell.)

Instead I will link you this:

ZOMBIES, RUN!

~Jeffles

Golden Week: Part 2

Hello and welcome back. Part 2 begins... now!

I've been thinking about what sort of post I wanted to write for part 2 of Golden Week. I considered doing a post in the same style as the last one but, to be honest, I think the last post was a bit long. There was just too much there.

This time, I'm going to relate a single encounter to you. It is, in my opinion, the most noteworthy encounter of the trip. But it also highlights the strange things that kept on happening to us. Just imagine that nights like this one happened every night and you won't be too far off.

Part 2 began when I caught the 6:20 train from my town on Wednesday evening. About three hours, two transfers and a bullet train ride later, my friend and I arrived in Fukuoka. Unfortunately, we arrived just after the reception desk at our hostel closed. Fortunately, we had anticipated this and the kind hostel people gave us the code for the front door to let ourselves in.

We settled into our room and, much to our pleasure, discovered that the hostel had left us a map filled with recommendations. There was one particular spot, marked as both a bar and a three-star recommendation, that we decided was our best bet for a good night. So off we went to the common room to round up our fellow hostelers.

Sad to say, but we only managed to get one companion. All the other people were stinky no-good losers and they all had extra long nose hairs, too.

I kid, I kid. Their nose hairs were perfectly normal.

So off we set with our single (awesome) companion. Along the way was much talk and merry-making. Stories were told, impressions were made. In the end, we decided that we were all super cool and were obviously destined to hang out together and become super friends.

We arrived at the bar and were told, first thing, by a balding man in his fifties who was obviously rather drunk, that the kitchen was closed. This, however, was quickly followed by the addition that drinking was perfectly okay. As we ourselves were perfectly okay with just drinking, we happily sauntered over to a corner table and ordered three beers.

This is when things began to get interesting. You see, we didn't simply receive three beers. We received two normal sized beers and a third beer which was the size of the other two beers combined. They came with an instruction from the balding man, too. To decide who was to drink the Great Beer, we were to janken. The winner would be crowned winner, champion, olympian god, and owner of the Great Beer.

Naturally, I won.

But it didn't end there. Barely halfway through our beers (or a quarter of the way through for me and my extra large beer), the balding man appeared again. This time, he had two women with him. One was about the same age as him, the other was maybe ten years younger. At this point it became quite clear that the balding man was, in fact, the owner of this fine establishment.

The conversation went something like this:

Balding Man: "Hello! This is my girlfriend!"

Woman #1: "Nice to meet you."

Balding Man: "This other woman is much better looking though, don't you think?"

Woman #1: "You asshole."

Woman #2 chuckles.

Balding Man: "You know, the dontaku matsuri is tomorrow, right?"

We acknowledge the existence of said matsuri and establish that, in fact, we have come from Okayama to see it.

Balding Man: "Okayama! We love Okayama! A transexual friend of ours dresses up every day like Momotaro, but as a woman, and performs on the street! You should see that!" (Note that Momotaro is the symbol of Okayama)

Woman #2: *ignoring the obvious surprise on our face* "Can we join you at your table?"

Sure, we say. The balding man disappears and the two women explain that he is going to bring us something to eat. They then ask if we want anything in particular to eat. We are confused, as the kitchen was closed, we'd thought.

Woman #2: "Psh. They'll make something if we ask."

Woman #1 agrees.

We express the fact that we are not particularly hungry and actually came here just to drink. Neither woman seems to hear us.

Woman #2: "I know what you should get! Shrimp! It's totally my favorite dish of all time ever."

Woman #1: "Yeah! Let me go ask them to make it."

She then ran off, somewhere beyond sight, to make her queries. We talk with Woman #2 for a little while. Not much important was said, but it was conversation and conversations are always fun. In the meantime, we finish our drinks and order another round.

Soon, Woman #1 returns. She is holding a bowl and in the bowl are three shrimp. But these are not normal shrimp. These are large, grey prawns, and they are alive.

Well damn. We all take a mental step back. I remember my brother talking about the drunken shrimp he had eaten during his time in China. Apparently the shrimp would be paralyzed by the liquor and be mostly unable to move.

Well, I think, maybe I could handle that. And maybe I could have, if we were eating drunken shrimp.

These were different. How do I know they were different? Mostly because they were moving. A lot.

After much freaking out on the part of myself and my fellow foreign friends, Woman #2 picks up the shrimp and starts ripping the shell, legs and tail off. As she does so, I can see it flexing and squirming. Each tug makes it quiver and I'm crawling backwards into my seat just thinking about the pain it's in.

Woman #2, of course, can't understand what we find so disturbing about the thing and just keeps going. Finally she finishes her gruesome task and offers the still twitching and very much alive shrimp to us. My friend takes it. As he dips it in the wasabi, though, it twitches and he drops it on the table.

"I can't do it, man. I can't." he opines, quite understandably.

In the back of my mind, however, is the drunken shrimp that my brother ate. If he could do it, so could I, I reasoned. So I steeled my nerves and picked the creature up. With its head between my index finger and thumb, I dipped it in the soy sauce, as directed by Woman #2. And then, I put it in my mouth.

I describe it this way, because in my mind I had in fact divorced myself from the idea that it was a live creature. It was simply that there was a series of steps to take and, if I followed them, then I would successfully affirm my masculinity and all the world would praise my awesomeness. Or something like that.

As I sank my teeth into its flesh, however, I was yanked back to reality. At that moment, I felt a quivering between my fingers. It was like the shrimp was giving one final scream, a death shake. Suddenly filled with disgust, I tossed the head of the shrimp into the bowl from whence it came.

A few moments later, I remembered to enjoy the taste of the shrimp in my mouth. It was indeed quite fresh. Quite tasty.

But would I go through it a second time to achieve that level of tastiness? Nope. I left the other two shrimp for my friends. It was also revealed at this point removing the heads from the start was permissible. In other words, there was no need to eat it while it was still mobile.

*facepalm*

Last night at a work enkai, I asked one of my coworkers if this was indeed a normal thing. Woman #2 had acted as if this kind of thing happened all the time, all over the country. Thankfully, my coworker's shocked reaction confirmed to me that this was, indeed, not a normal meal.

The night got better after that.

A few minutes, perhaps a half hour later, the owner returned to our table. He informed us that, of the other customers currently in the restaurant, there happened to be an a capella group. They also happened to be singing. We had heard the singing earlier, but thought it was a recording.

So naturally we wandered over to the a capella group's table and introduced ourselves. And just as naturally, they decided to put on a performance for us.

Happily, and with our jaws still hanging a bit open, we allowed ourselves to be serenaded. And when the song was over, the next natural step was to change our location to the table right next to the a capella group. Then, just to add the icing to the cake, the owner decided to give us all a free round of miso soup.

We stayed there as long as we could, until the staff informed us that the bar was closing for the night. Then, to send us on our way, the owner gave us each two bananas and an orange, stuck a can on his head, and took a picture with us. Why? I have no idea. Nor do I care.

I love Japan.

~Jeffles

Golden Week: Part 1

(This post is rather long. Also early, because I won't be able to write a post tomorrow. I do it because I love you. <3)

It's now halfway through Golden Week and I feel like I'm just getting going. Hard to believe, really, when I consider just how much has happened since last Friday.

Fridays are one of two days in the week when I am sent on a half-hour bike ride to an Elementary school. The other day is Monday, which bookends my weeks nicely. This Friday, however, I was more concerned with whether or not I'd be able to make my train in time.

Luckily, it happened to be a week of home-visits. Every day last week, school would end after lunch and the students would head home. Shortly after, the teachers would stream out of the teacher room clad in identical black suits, carrying identical black briefcases, heading to their students' homes for a heart-to-heart with their students' parents. What that meant for me specifically, as a mere assistant teacher, was that I could finish up early and head to the Board of Education. From there, it's only 5 minutes by bicycle and I'm home.

I took full advantage of this fact. As soon as the clock hit 4:15, I ran down to my bike and turned a five minute ride into two minutes. At home, I rammed a long weekend's worth of clothes and toiletries into my backpack, and hopped back on my bike to head to the train station.

All in all, the entire procedure - BOE to home, packing, and home to train station - took about half an hour. And all I forgot was a tooth brush, which I soon found a ￥50 (~$0.60 USD) replacement for. Not too shabby.

Once in the great city of Okayama, the merriment began.

Our merry band

The plan was this: First, we would find a place to consume foods. Second, we would acquire the liquid beverages necessary to make the night perfectly forgettable. Finally, we would mosey on down to the club where our common friend was to execute his DJ skillz. At some point, presumably, we would have to emerge into the night/dawn and find something to do with ourselves. But we would cross that bridge when we got to it. And in the mean time, we could always book a capsule hotel.

As it so happened, we were bogged down from the first step. Our initial hopes of chowing down on a rooftop patio were beaten into nothing by the fact that Japan wasn't yet in "rooftop patio season." Instead, we ended up at a ridiculously over priced buffet restaurant that would later prove to be our downfall. You see, not only was it overpriced, it was also pretty much disgusting. In general, I'm not that picky when it comes to food quality. I have some picky habits (no bananas, thank you very much, and keep those raw tomatoes away from me), but if it's cooked, I'm usually okay with it. Still, I was admittedly daunted by what lay before me.

The fare was simple enough: fried rice and sushi, fried chicken and sausages, that sort of thing. But even the pasta was stale and seemed like it was, in fact, yesterday's dinner microwaved and presented today. Which made me suspicious of the sushi. Others, braver than me, tried the sushi and paid the price.

But that wouldn't come into play until later. In the mean time, we finished up our meal and headed out for the bar. It was time to take things to the next level. On the way we stopped into a konbini and bought ourselves a few chu-hais and canned beers. I know, real classy.

At the bar, we enlargened our group by about double. Possibly more, I'm not totally sure. We also consumed several more, slightly classier, drinks. Well, at least they weren't in cans. And I did have a glass of wine, which is definitely in a classier category than chu-hai.

Anyway, to cut a long list of drinks and drunken acts short, we got out of the bar after about an hour and a half, then headed to the club. As it turns out, the "club" was more like a private party for us. Not intended to be, I'm sure, but as we constituted about half the patrons, the club pretty much belonged to us.

Well, that's okay. I had expected it to be a small place.

Here, check out this video. It captures, in complete detail, the experience.

Seriously, I don't recommend watching the whole thing.

Sometime around 4 AM myself and a small remaining group stumbled out of the club. That small group then split into two and one group (mine) went to the capsule hotel while the other group went God knows where. Probably somewhere with more booze, if I were to guess.

As you might imagine, the following morning was something awful. I woke up after a fitful four hours of sleep and crammed some food into my mouth. An hour later, I was joined by two of my fellows and we plotted when to catch the train to Ise. One more person was supposed to join us, but the buffet food and booze had laid waste to his stomach and, quite frankly, he wasn't going to make it. He would try, he said, to catch a later train, but I wasn't holding my breath.

That day, not a whole lot was accomplished. Partly because our train didn't get into Ise until 2 PM. Mostly because actually doing things was not compatible with our current condition. To point: the first thing we did upon arriving in Ise was take a nap.

Us upon arrival.

Eventually we roused ourselves enough to make our way to a late lunch. We asked the hostelier for a recommendation and he pointed us in the way of Cafe Jamise. (You can see a picture of us here.) It turned out to be a truly awesome, chill spot. We seemed to be the only paying customers there, but we weren't alone. There was also some guy, apparently quite famous, playing a box-drum thing.

You know what, that description really doesn't do him justice. Let me try again.

There was also some guy, apparently quite famous, who introduced himself as Poutine. The entire time whilst we were talking, a constant drumming could be heard erupting from Mr. Poutine's direction - I quickly learned that this was a nearly unconscious act of his. The man's fingers drummed. It was their essence, their raison d'etre. A little bit later, he brought a Cajón out from his car and treated us all to a half hour of drum beats and finger rhythms that I could barely even follow with my eyes.

Suffice to say, he was pretty awesome.

We rounded out the rest of the day with some snacks by the river, an hour long game of 20 questions (highlights included "Under my bed" and "Air"), and shabu shabu. Just after sunset, we were joined by our final companion, who had finally ridden his stomach of all the vileness of the night before.

The next day could be an entire blog post in its own right. But as this post is already getting long, I'll sum it up in point form, chronological style.

• 10:00 AM - Awaken to our host playing super chill ambient music on his electric guitar.
• 10:30 AM - Wander into a konbini for breakfast, rush to the train station and barely make it onto the train for Futami and the Wedded Rocks.
• 10:45 AM - Arrive at the Wedded Rocks and wander about. Enjoy the ocean. Discover a several awesome frog statues. Collect sea shells and sea glass. Be happy.
• 11:45 AM - Catch train back to Ise.
• 12:00 noon - Arrive in Ise. Be disappointed at the fact that all the bikes have been rented. Decide instead to taxi it to the Inner Shrine of Ise Jingu.
• 12:20 PM - Arrive at Inner Shrine, wallet feeling somewhat lighter. Eat lunch. Wander the grounds. Get told off by security guards twice for failed attempts at Gaijin Smashing. Be rather impressed by the whole thing.
• 2:30 PM - Take a taxi back to the hostel. Check out, inspect bags, be cool. Drop off one of our number who is feeling rather exhausted. Walk to Outer Shrine of Ise Jingu. Encounter Power Rangers.
• 3:00 PM - Arrive at Outer Shrine. Walk around, realize that many of its buildings are exactly the same as the Inner Shrine, except that the whole thing is rather smaller and less pretentious. Be pleased.
• 3:45 PM - Walk back to hostel, pick up exhausted companion, walk to the train station and catch a train to Osaka.
• 5:45 PM - Arrive in Osaka. Drop things off at capsule hotel. Visit a record shop and be blown away by the cheap and awesome selections. Make our way to El Pancho. Be full of food and joy.
• 9:30 PM - Go to L&L, a tiny shisha bar in Shinsaibashi. Apparently it is also a favorite hangout of Boys2Men and "The Green Jedi". We decided the guy meant Liam Neeson. Be impressed. Also amused.
• 11:00 PM - Finally decide on a club to go to.
• 11:30 PM - Arrive at said club, only to be told we have to wait another fifteen minutes. We go to get another chu-hai from the nearby konbini.
• 11:45 PM - Enter the club, only to discover that, including the three of us, there are a total of 12 patrons. But it's okay, because it's so full of fake fog that we can barely even see each other. Proceed to dance. Witness the Great Circle Dancer. Drink. Be happy and exhausted.
• 3:00 AM - Finally exit the club and head back to the capsule hotel to get some sleep. Be amused at the porn playing on tv in the hallway, climb into capsule, fall asleep.

The next and final day of the first half of Golden Week (Monday, if you've managed to follow thus far) was a much slower day. We ended up just perusing some shops, catching a showing of Dirty Harry in northern Osaka, and finally taking the bus back home.

Since then, I've been in my inaka little town. Yesterday and today I had classes to teach. But now, that's all over. This evening, Golden Week resumes.

I'm comin' for ya, Fukuoka.

~Jeffles

Golden Weeking

Today, as you probably know, it is April 26th. That may not mean much to you, but it certainly means something to me. And what it means is this:

Golden Week is coming.

Very soon, in fact. It will arrive in TWO DAYS. That's right, you heard me. Two. Days. If today is Thursday, then Golden Week will be here on what day? Come on now, say it with me. Saturday.

Good job.

You get a Gold Star!

What is Golden Week, you ask? Golden Week is a short period of time in which there are several national holidays. Essentially, this results in a week during which the entire country goes on vacation. This year, Golden week consists of two successive long weekends, one being a 3 day long weekend and the other being a 4 day long weekend.

But this is not necessarily the fantastic, wonderful gift that you might expect it to be. Plane, train, bus, and hotel prices sky rocket. A trip that might only cost you $300 at any other time of year will now cost you at least twice that amount. And you may not even be able to make the trip in the first place. Why? Because hotels at popular destinations may have already been entirely booked up for six months to a year in advance.

Yes, really. In fact, this happened to me. A few friends and I were planning to go to Yakushima for the second part of golden week. It's an incredibly gorgeous island that is famed for its nature, its obscenely old trees, its incredible hikes, and its mind-bending beauty. It is so beautiful, in fact, that Hayao Miyazaki based the forest setting of his famous movie, Princess Mononoke, on the island.

Unfortunately, despite looking a full two months in advance, my friends and I could not find a single place to lodge ourselves. Sadness. :(

Yeah, that sucked. But we all ended up making new plans, so it's okay. And now, Golden week is just around the corner. In fact, it begins tomorrow for me. When school gets out I will head down to the city to see my friend put on what will certainly be a super awesome DJ set. From there, it's Ise, Osaka, and later Fukuoka. Should be a good time.

What about you? If you live in Japan, what are your plans for Golden Week? If you don't live in Japan, what WOULD you do given a free week to travel?

~Jeffles

What's in a Name?

So, the last post was kind of a non-post and I feel like I should make up for it. So here you go, have a Japan story.

One of the by-products of teaching English in a small community in Japan is that you tend to be around kids a lot. And when you're around kids a lot, it is inevitable that you are also going to be around their parents at some point. Because kids and parents go together like... like two things that go really well together.

Yesterday, one of my elementary schools held an open house day. What this amounted to was a horde of parents descending upon the school to watch their children in class. I'm unsure if they were there to support their kids or if they were there to see what kind of teachers their kids have. Possibly both reasons.

At any rate, I was not given any classes to demonstrate. Fine by me. The less responsibility foisted upon my shoulders, the better. Instead, I wandered about from class to class, showing my smiley face to all the little kidlets and saying hello to the parents.

At one classroom, I was approached by a particularly happy looking woman.

"Are you the English teacher?" she asked.

I replied in the affirmative.

"Oh great!" Her smile opened up wide enough to show her pearly whites. "You see my son over there? He has a younger brother now! Well, he already is the younger brother - he has an older sister, you know - but now there's another younger brother in the family."

Thinking she was just excited to talk to a foreigner who knew her son, I congratulated her. Given how fit she looked, I guessed the birth was not an immediately recent event. Still, it must be recent enough that it was noteworthy. I decided it has happened in the last few months.

"Well," she continued, "I told my son that he could name the new baby. He thought about it for a little bit, then said 'Canada'."

She laughed.

"Canada?" I replied, dumbfounded. Would a Japanese person actually use a name like that?

"That name is a little strange, of course," she said, "so we went with Kanata."

I told her I thought that was an excellent choice for a name. At that point her son barreled out of the classroom and into his mother. I grinned while she explained to the boy what she had just told me. He glanced at me shyly, then ran back into the classroom, presumably to escape my piercing gaijin eyes.

And there you have it. Your Jeffles has inspired the names of children in Japan. If that isn't internationalization, nothing is.

~Jeffles

Awwwwww

I have nothing to say today.* So have a picture of a baby seal.

Aww, how adorable.

~Jeffles

*In fact, I ran out of time. But I've been relearning HTML and CSS and this post makes use of that fact. And yes, I used a table. Deal with it. That's what I actually have to say today. Yay.

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

10 Things I've Learned From Japan

This is a bit early, but I was compiling this here list and I thought "You know what? I should post this." So here you go. And it's nice and short, too. So no worries there, ya know?

Also, I will post again, as regularly scheduled, on Thursday.

Further, I could probably make a list much, much longer than just 10 points, but 10 is a good number. I like 10. Got some other suggestions? Post a comment!

Finally, if you are interested in hearing the story behind any one of these points (they all have at least one, probably several), let me know... Post a comment!

And without further ado...

---

10 Things I've Learned From Japan

1. Toilet seats. They can be heated. And you don't have to be a millionaire to experience this!

2. English is an obscenely hard language created by and for demons and is almost certainly not worth the effort.

My students every day.

3. Everything tastes better raw.

4. There are, in fact, only six continents.

5. Africa is a country. (And a continent. Much like Australia.)

6. I am practically a god at using chopsticks and all shall worship at the alter of my rice bowl.

No, Mr. Miyagi, it is not beginner's luck.

7. If you can say this phrase, you are probably amazing at Japanese: “go hyaku en desu.” Good luck.

8. I look exactly like Tom Cruise.

Me, yesterday.

9. It is possible to commute from Canada to Japan every day for work.

10. Poop is goddamn adorable.

Awwwwww

The Shigyoushiki

Please pardon the lateness of this post. I fully intended to write yesterday, but somehow it just never happened. But it's for the best, really, because now I can write about the "shigyoushiki," or Opening Ceremony.

This story really begins a couple weeks ago. School had just ended for the year and I was mentally preparing myself to spend all day, every day, sitting at a desk with nothing productive to do. I would study Spanish, I decided. And because I am incapable of actually focusing on just one goal, I also decided to relearn how to do some basic programming. And to read some of those books that keep staring at me every time I go home.

Then my laptop exploded.

Jeffles Two Weeks Ago

Okay, I exaggerate. But the power cord had melted and the side of the computer started smoking. At first I smelled something burning, so I looked around. Had I lit incense and forgotten? It has been known to occur, but no, I hadn't done so this time. That's when I realized something was wrong and saw the stream of smoke rising from my laptop. Wasting no time, I reached for the power cord, hoping to yank it out and shut down the computer as quickly as possible. My first attempt was driven back, though, by a flurry of sparks erupting into my hand.

The true effect of the sparks, though, was to steel my determination. Lappy needed to be put down.

Heedless of the flying specks of fire, I grabbed the cord and yanked it out.

And I breathed. The sparks stopped, as did the smoke.

It's possible that all I needed was a new power cord, but between this event, my laptop's truly horrible speakers, its penchant for literally dying for no apparent reason, the common refusal to start up, the visual hues that keep changing and dead pixels that keep popping up, and the pure slowness and lack of power of the machine in spite of its annoyingly large size, I needed a new laptop. The next day I found PCTokyo and ordered myself a brand new machine. A week and a half later, it arrived.

With it also arrived a certain desire. This was a desire to play a new(ish) game. The newest game I've been able to play on my previous (exploded) laptop was a full five years old. So you see, I haven't exactly been enjoying top-of-the-line products. Thus it was, with a heart full of anticipation, I logged onto amazon.co.jp and ordered myself Skyrim.

What does this have to do with the Opening Ceremony? Well, you see, Skyrim arrived yesterday. And the Opening Ceremony was today. This morning, in fact.

Yes, I admit it. I did stay up until nearly 4:30 in the morning playing Skyrim, only to awaken three hours later to rush to work. Is Skyrim the reason I was late to the Opening Ceremony, the reason I wore an unwashed shirt covered in lint from an old sweater, but not a tie or a suit jacket, the reason I nearly fell asleep in the middle of the ceremony? Maybe not. But the chain of cause and effect has to start somewhere and that's as good a place as any.

I tried to waste no time, tried to get out the door as early as I could manage. But alas, fate was working against me.

I logged off my chat messenger and shut down my computer a full five minutes earlier than normal. Not thinking of anything beyond getting out the door, I grabbed the nearest button-up shirt, which ended up being the aforementioned lint-covered shirt. I grabbed my bag, affirming that all the necessary materials were present, and stepped toward the door.

Then I remembered, Friday is bottles and plastic garbage day. I checked I my watch. Crap. Fast as I thought I'd been moving, somehow five minutes had passed by in my preparations. Well, if I didn't take my trash out now, I'd have to wait two more weeks and plastic seriously knows how to pile up in Japan.

So I got my bags of plastics and bottles together, put on my coat and my bag, walked over to the garbage drop-off point, and then made my way back to my bike. Another five minutes elapsed. I was now officially late.

Well, I can just bike fast, I reasoned. Perhaps that might have saved five minutes, but at that moment I remembered something else I had to do: buy a bento lunch.

Normally, elementary school teachers (which is what I am on Fridays) eat the same school lunch as the students do. In fact, I have my very own personal schedule for which group of students I am supposed to eat with on which day. But today was a special day. Today there would be no kyuushoku. And late as I already was, there was no chance in hell that I'd be making my own lunch.

So I biked to a grocery store that is thankfully open 24 hours and somewhat on my way to school, picked up something tasty-ish looking, paid for it, and hopped back onto my bike. I was now a full ten minutes late.

If I bike really fast, I might be able to do it, I thought.

And maybe I would have been able to. Except that today I was biking directly into very strong winds for the entire ride. I'm talking the kind of wind that blows your umbrella inside out and threatens to pick up your grandma and deposit her in the next county over. Any dreams I had of making up the time I had lost were thereby shattered.

Grandma This Morning

Half an hour later, I arrived at a suspiciously quiet school. Suspiciously quiet in that it was as quiet as a school would be if all the students had been gathered into a single room and told to be quiet.

But here's the worst part. It hadn't even occurred to me that there might be an Opening Ceremony today until half way through my bike ride. On my schedule, all it says is that my day is full of meetings. No mention of the Opening Ceremony. (This would be why I was not wearing a suit and tie.)

So I arrived at the Opening Ceremony entirely unprepared, under-dressed, and late. What a way to start the school year and make a good first impression on the new teachers, eh?

The ceremony itself was quite boring, actually, and not very different from the sort of assemblies we have in Canada and the US.

All the students sat down in lines according to what grade and class they were in. Then the principle stood up and introduced the new teachers to the students. All the main players then gave speeches. Topics were standard fare ("Study hard and do your best!", "Don't forget your manners!", "Don't forget to have fun!"). We sang the school song (I mostly just pretended as I have no idea what the words are), then the students were introduced to their teachers.

This was one point that was slightly different. From what I remember, my schools when I was a kid always posted lists of who was in what class with what teacher. In Japan, though, the class stays the same. Only the teacher changes and even then, sometimes the teacher stays the same across several years. And again, slightly different, the teacher assignments were announced at the Opening Ceremony rather than posted somewhere as a list to be read.

Of course, there was also copious bowing, all the students wore uniforms (which they always wear, not just during ceremonies) and everything was conducted in Japanese. In these ways, the Opening Ceremony here in Japan is different from what we might experience in Canada or the US. That is, for schools in Canada and the US that actually have assemblies at the opening of the school year (and I know some do).

When the ceremony finally finished, I slunk out of the gym and went to the teacher's room to write this post. And so here I am.

~Jeffles

China: Part 3

Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final act is about to begin. If you would be so kind as to return to your assigned spots, we may commence. Thank you for your cooperation.

Please be warned that this is the longest of the three acts. If you require a bathroom break or a drink, please take care of that now. One the act begins, there will be no stopping.

And here we go in 3...

2...

1...

*



Let's fast forward now to my final full day in China. It was a Monday, a fairly normal Monday. A curtain of smog hung over the city, though its threat level hovered only at a mild "unhealthy" rating. Certainly manageable. Nonetheless, I had no plans to bother managing it.

I had booked a ticket to the Great Wall.

It's said that when a person goes to Beijing, there are two things he must do: eat Peking Duck and see the Great Wall. I'd managed the Peking Duck the previous night and it was time to his the second item on the list. The question was, where to start?

Lucky for me, my hostel had a Great Wall tour on offer. In fact, they had two. Seeing as how I was feeling a little tight - 900 yuan in cell phone rental fees will do that to you - I opted for the cheaper one. Nonetheless, it looked pretty cool. I'd been told to avoid the tourist trap otherwise known as Badaling and this tour quite clearly went somewhere else. Good enough for me.

(For the curious, my destination to-be was Jinshanling.)

The girl behind the front desk informed me of the price and the pick-up time. 6:20 AM. My first thought: "Damn, that's early." But it was a full day at the Great Wall that I'd wanted and it was a full day that I got. This information was followed up by a reminder that it took three to four hours to drive to the Great Wall, thus the early pick-up time. We wouldn't be back until five or six in the evening.

I happily told the girl that would fine and wandered up to my room to read my book and get some early shut eye.

6:20 rolled around and with it a knock on my door.

"Coming!" I replied. The lack of response suggested I was not dealing with an English speaker. Opening the door confirmed that yes, the man outside was Chinese and spoke no English.

I raised two fingers. Two minutes and I'll be ready, I was trying to say. Sign-language was never a strong suit of mine, but he nodded and headed downstairs. I hurriedly slipped on my jacket and hat, swung my bag around my shoulder, and headed out the door. No time to shave, but that was okay; I could think of no particular need to make myself presentable.

When I arrived downstairs, I noted a distinct lack of people. There was only myself, the desk girl, and the Chinese man who was, I presumed, my guide. Perhaps everyone else was already on the bus, I thought.

Following the man outside, however, showed me that there in fact was no bus. We walked to a black car parked along the curb. It was in relatively decent condition. Corrosion from rust was limited to the edges of the car's frame and nothing too serious. I climbed into the back seat.

Well, I guess it's just me, I thought to myself.

My driver opened his door and sat down. He fiddled with the radio for a moment before selecting a Mandarin talk-radio station. At the same time, I searched for a seat belt, which I quickly realized was a futile search.

Then we were off, driving through the center of the city, around the Drum Tower, down the street, then onto the second ring road. For those who don't know, Beijing's walls were knocked down in the cultural revolution to be replaced by the second ring road. While a convenient road for transportation, it is also a reminder of what the city has lost.

After driving for about half an hour, we stopped at a light. Crossing the road in front of us was a group of nearly thirty tourists (exactly 28, I later learned). Oh, I thought. Maybe they're going to the Great Wall, too. Clearly they were headed for one of the buses parked just to the side.

As it turns out, my guess was dead on.

The man driving the car executed a U-turn as the light turned green and drove to a stop in front of the bus. I was, I suddenly realized, not alone. And this man was certainly not my tour guide. He'd simply been asked by the hostel to take me to the tour.

The light bulbs, they flicker in my head.

I gathered up my bag and rushed onto the bus. Just in time, as it turned out. They were ready to leave.

Three hours later, the duration of which time I had been crammed into a tiny space between my arm rest and a large German man, we arrived. Only one stop had been required on the way, a bathroom break.

I note this because the tourists coming back on the bus made several incredulous noises relating to the dirt-hole nature of the bathroom. I barely suppressed my own incredulous noise; what exactly had they been expecting, I wondered? Just how romanticized were their views of rural China?

At any rate, we arrived at Jinshanling with no further incidents.

We got off the bus and had our first real glimpse of the Wall. The road we were on winded up the hills on the Northern side. On the highest hills in the distance, rising above the rest, was a lone tower. It was brownish in color and squat-looking, but clearly formidable. Off its sides ran two long, jagged lines, like the flattened wings of a ragged bird. Somehow, it was smaller than I had expected. But I also knew it was still quite far away and would seem much bigger soon enough.

What was exactly as expected was the crowd of local villagers trying to foist their assorted coke bottles and snickers bars onto us. Thanks to my unshaven face and dark sunglasses, they didn't seem to bother much with me. Still, a few people did approach me with offers. I simply shook my head in response and turned my face in another direction.

We continued on the road to the wall and discovered another group waiting for us. I took this group in stride, too. The same routine followed.

"Snicker? Snickers?" A chorus of 'no' erupts in response. "Water? Coca cola?" This time a few low chuckles are mixed in with the 'no.'

The group gets through, more or less unscathed.

After this second assault, we regroup in front of a map of the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall. Our tour guide informs us that we are to be back at that sign by 1:30 for lunch. Our bus will depart at 2. He drives this point home a few more times, then sends us on our way.

The way to the Great Wall consists of three parts. First is the bus to the entrance. Second is the road from the entrance to the trail. This bit has to be walked. Third, and finally, is a slim, ice-covered trail up the hillside from the road and onto the wall itself. Each part has its own group of vendors attempting to sell you various snacks and drinks. Mostly snickers bars, water, and coca cola. A few also offered beer, but whether anyone has ever actually bought that, I have no idea.

As we came up to the final third of the approach to the wall, the expectant group of vendors was waiting. They chatted among each other and seemed generally more jovial than the previous two groups. They were also all women.

When the trail, it was impossible to not also approach them. They had positioned themselves directly between us and the trail head. Frustrating though it was, I put my head down and tromped on through.

Something interesting was happening this time, though. Unlike the previous two groups, these women were following us up the trail. It sounded like they were propositioning us with goods, but I didn't hear any of the previous goods mentioned at all. No snickers, no water, no coca cola. In fact, the more I listened, the more I realized that the chatter I had been tuning out was actually chatter between the women. They weren't even talking to us.

I began to wonder what was going on. Was this another, domestic tour group? Their friendliness seemed to push this proposition forward. For instance, I slipped on a patch of black ice at one point and heard an accented voice behind me say "Be careful!" A light chuckle followed. These did not seem like the attitudes of saleswomen.

And yet they were sticking awfully close to us and some of them did not appear to be very well off. I couldn't decide what was going on for the first few minutes of walking on the trail. Who were these women?

Finally, once we were actually on top of the Great Wall itself, surrounded by a ring of these women, who were seemingly just waiting for us to move, I realized what was happening. Our tour guide, who had essentially disappeared, was not our real guide. These women were. And they were going to expect some sort of reward at the end.

I didn't like this very much. I had paid for a guide and I wanted the guide I had paid for. Either that, or I was going to be on my own. So, determined, I set off. It wasn't long before I was clearly in the lead, outpacing most of my fellow tourists.

It was also clear that I had a acquired a guide. She managed to stay a few steps ahead of me the entire time. At first, she offered to show me a route through some of the more difficult terrain, but those offers soon disappeared as she realized I didn't actually need that sort of guidance. Instead, she started explaining little features about the wall. Things like how you can tell which side is North, which are the newer sections, and which sections are 500 years old. Before long, I started to find I actually liked the woman.

We talked a little bit about where I was from and where she was from. Turns out she had been doing this every day for the past 10 years, that she was actually a farmer from over the hills, that she had two sons. Most shockingly to me, she said she was 37 ("old" by her reckoning). When I first saw her, I had estimated her age to be at least ten years older. Whether she was telling me the truth about her life of not, she clearly had had a difficult time.

The hike took me about an hour and a half each way. My guide and I were both sweating and panting by the time we reached the end. I had pushed her hard. Even though she had essentially forced herself onto me, I decided in the end that she had earned her souvenir. The prices were steep, but I didn't bother to haggle. I bought a book and a shirt and said farewell.

Lunch was an interesting affair, mostly because the food was not that interesting. Nearly all my other meals in China were delicious and very noteworthy, but this one was not. There was a lot of it, though, so I filled up and climbed on the bus.

On the way back, I discussed my hatred of Twilight with a French woman who was also part of the trip. And, as promised, I was back at the hostel by six that evening.

The next day, I woke up bright and early, climbed on a plane, and made my way back to Japan. And here I am, once again, Jeffles in Japan.

~Jeffles

China: Part 2

Welcome back. Please, take off your shoes, grab a cup of tea, and relax for a little while. Take any seat you like; they're all there for you, baby.

*

When I got off the plane, I had to suppress a wave of disgust threatening to rise from deep inside me. Apparently, the Chinese had taken a 'throw them in the deep end' position on tourists. Rather than connect the plane directly to the inside of the airport via walkway, we new arrivals exited from the plane into the smog-filled landscape that is Beijing. Our goal: a grey bus lined extensively on either side with windows.

Awareness of a previously unknown stench crept in like a family of cockroaches climbing through the kitchen pipes. Even when I reached the bus, I couldn't escape it; the doors had been thrown open to the world. It was all I could to to stand, gloved hand gripping a pole to steady myself, and wonder what sort of place I had brought myself to.

The smog never lifted. As I waited for a taxi to take me to my hostel, it was there. As we drove down the third ring road, winding our way through desiccated forests and looming high-rise buildings, it was there. When, a couple hours later, I found myself wandering through one of Beijing's aged hutong districts, still it was there.

In fact, it only got worse.

After a deliciously massive lunch of unknown meat, noodles of equally unknown size, and various tiny, red hot peppers, after walking the grey streets of Beijing for two hours in an attempt to gain some sort of rudimentary understanding of this incredible city, I returned, exhausted, to my hostel. It was approximately four in the afternoon. Maybe four thirty.

Sixteen hours later, I woke up. Usually, when traveling alone, I stay in a hostel's dorm style rooms. This is for a very simple reason: it's a damn good way to meet people. To this day, I've only had one item go missing and that was because I left it out in a communal area as if anyone could use it. My guess? Someone thought it belonged to the hostel and, you know, used it.

This time I decided to spring the cash for a personal room. And thank god I did, because I never would have rested so well in a dorm-style room.

The room itself was on the second floor, yet most of the surrounding buildings were only one story, so its two south-facing windows presented a view of the entire city. Or it should have.

When I woke the next morning, even the building next door, a place all of five feet from my window, was obscured by smog. Just the idea that I would be able to view the entire city from my window was so ridiculous at that moment that I wondered if I shouldn't have my head examined. After all, who was I to expect to be able to see the city I had come to sight-see in? Obviously I was going about this all wrong.

The smog stayed all day. Around noon I called an acquaintance of mine in the city to meet up for lunch. During the call, he quietly informed me that the air quality monitor on the US embassy in Beijing was reporting Beijing to currently be "very unhealthy."

You know what that is? That's one step below "hazardous." And children were playing in the streets. They may as well have been playing in a smoker's lounge. Hell, they may as well have been smokers.

"There should be a ban on anyone under the age of 18 entering the city," I thought. My eye fell on five children in their school uniforms, each child no more than ten years old, kicking around a soccer ball. I wanted to shake them, tell them to go home as quick as they can and stay indoors. Instead I averted my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts.

Nonetheless, I was determined to see Beijing.

I'll continue in my next blog post.

An Excusable Absence

Sorry! I haven't been around in a while, I know. I actually have legit reasons this time, though.

Last week, I was in China! Yeah, that's right. That country with the billions of people and one-child policy and communist crazies. And as China has a firewall that blocks blogger, I couldn't blog.

Then, last night, my computer pretty much exploded. At first it started smoking, then the power plug started shooting sparks into my hand as I tried to unplug the cord. So I shut it down and today ordered a new computer. It should arrive in two weeks.

Each one of these things constitutes several blogs in themselves, but I only have about half an hour left in the work day before I have to return home. Where I have no computer. For the weekend.

So I just wanted to let you know what was up.

There will be multiple blog posts next week to cover these topics. This is because I have no classes right now and am basically just sitting around at my desk with nothing to do. Hooray spring break! Maybe I'll talk about that a little bit, too.

For now, a little anecdote about China.

It was Friday morning and my plane was arriving in Beijing. The flight had only been a short three hours, a mere hop and a skip from Osaka. As the plane descended and I thought about how it seemed to be landing altogether too soon, I thought back to Japan.

"To tell the truth, I've never been to a foreign country," admitted one teacher of mine. She's in her late 40s and exactly like a depressingly large number of her fellow countrymen and women.

But it's not just foreign countries. Japanese adults seem to rarely take any vacation time at all. Not because they don't have vacation time; they do have vacation time, though from what I understand it may only be as little as 6 days. No, it's because they'd feel bad if they left work. Vacation is, from a Japanese perspective, selfish.

This is one thing I'll never understand. Vacation is enlightening. It makes us more well rounded people. And most importantly for a business, it refreshes an reinvigorates us.

I thought about all of this as the wheels dislodged themselves from the body of the airplane. They were accompanied with a clunking sound like boiling water crashing through an old radiator. Nothing to worry about, though. This was hardly my first time on a plane and sounds like that are pretty well par for the course. If anything, it's a sign that all is well and working. Next to me, a Japanese man bobs his head in his sleep, his mouth making a funny little pout.

We had been enveloped in clouds for about five or ten minutes when the ground appeared beneath us, rising toward us like the back of a gargantuan whale. Then, with a jolt, we were down. The wheels of the plane raced across the asphalt, great gusts of air pushing on the wing flaps, trying to force them back down.

As the aircraft, now little more than an over-sized bus, finally slowed down, I took a look outside.

Beijing looked grey. The sky was invisible. Nothing was up there except static, like a tv at two in the morning on mute. Off in the distance, I thought I could make out the outlines of tall buildings. They were pretty obscured, though. Well, Beijing is a pretty polluted city, I thought. Everyone's heard the stories.

"Welcome to Beijing," chimed a flight attendant's voice over the intercom. "You may notice that the air quality is a little different from Osaka."

I took another look outside the window. Damn. Talk about an understatement. "A little different?"

Those weren't buildings I had seen in the distance. Those were trees. And they weren't so distant, more like sitting on the edge of the runway. Somehow, they had been so obscured, I thought they were far off buildings.

I was no longer in Japan.

~Jeffles

[Ramble]

So I lied. French is not the answer. Spanish is the answer!

Haha, yeah. I keep changing it. But this time is for reals! Seriously! It would be super useful (the US is full of Spanish speakers), I have tons of resources (both my parents are fluent), I definitely have motivation (half my family speaks Spanish and some of them don't speak English), and there's much Spanish literature to discover. Truthfully, my initial dip into the world of Spanish literature didn't go very well. Got just over halfway through One Hundred Years of Solitude and couldn't go any further. This was after about two years of effort.

I've got it! The book is mean to TAKE a hundred years to read, and then only if you're placed in solitude the entire time! Man, I am a genius.

Har har. No, I know, I have to give the book another chance. And there's gotta be lots of good books by Spanish-speaking authors out there. Actually, if you're reading this now and know of some such books, let me know!

In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out how I want to spend the rest of my time here in Japan. I want to travel, that much is clear. But I need to travel cheap, because I've sorta been hit by a bunch of unexpected costs recently. So how can I do that? I may have discovered the answer.

I remembered last night that I have a ton of Aeroplan points, which work for any airlines in Star Alliance. That's a lot of airlines! Best part, I have enough points to swing a free round-trip flight to pretty much anywhere in Asia. Huzzah. The question now is where?

The only time I really have to do such a trip is going to be in August. I reeeeeeally want to go to Southeast Asia, but there's a problem: August is monsoon season. Practically the WORST time of year to travel there. It looks like Malaysia is relatively dry during that time, though. So maybe I'll go to Singapore, then travel around to Malaysia and Indonesia, then back to Singapore to catch my return flight to Japan. I dunno. Could work. Might be fun. I hear that's a relatively cheap part of the world, too, so maybe it wouldn't be too expensive.

Sigh.

In case you didn't figure it out, I have nothing to do these days. I just sit around at the office and wait to go home. Much thinking and plotting (dreaming) is involved.

Well, okay, I guess I've done a few things. I finally made it back to Judo after three months. That was two days ago. I'm still sore. (Reminder to self: don't skip Judo for that long again!) I've also managed to learn about 100 words in Spanish in the last three days. So that's something. And I wouldn't exactly call myself bored. It's hard to be bored in a place like this, where there's always something happening somewhere. I'm just... not stretched enough. Yeah. Need more stretching!

[/ramble]

~Jeffles

Ze Future

Oh my god it's March!

Yeah, I don't really have anything to say. I think it's gonna be another short one... You see, one of my schools is basically out of session until sometime in April. That means that I get to sit around at my office desk for half the week. Soon, when my other schools get out of session, I'll be sitting around at my office desk for ALL the week!

It sounds like I'm complaining. The truth is that I have no desire to complain; I like having nothing to do. It's relaxing. I can concentrate on the other things I have a desire to do. And these days, I'm full of thoughts that need to be sorted out. Mostly about (DUN DUN DUNNNNNN) my future!

That's right, Jeffles is angsting out about his future. Sigh.

It seemed like I had it all figured out. Once JET ends, go to Thailand and volunteer in an orphanage for a month. Then, hop on over to Beijing and become a master of Mandarin in six months. Then, go back to the US and become a citizen. Get my driver's license, a cushy internship and a sweet new pad. Then ALL the moneys will be mine.

Except it isn't working out that way. Mostly because I realized that the Thailand and Beijing parts of that are logistical nightmares to figure out. I might be able to do it, but I'd be flat broke by the time I went home and probably wouldn't be able to maximize the experience because I'd be so cautious about my money. Moreover, I can't spend that much time outside of the US or else the authorities will take away my residency and that would put a serious damper on my become-a-citizen plans.

But even more importantly, I forgot a lesson I learned early on in university: I am not the kind of person that can simply do what is useful or convenient. There has to be more to it. I have to have some sort of personal investment in the activity. That means that, for me, studying Mandarin would probably be a bad idea.

Why? China's a big, powerful, rich country, after all. I would have my future SET if I could go there. Except that money has never really been a big motivator for me and, frankly, I just don't care that much about China. So why learn Mandarin? I firmly believe that a language cannot be learned "just because." You need a deeper motivation, a reason to care. I don't think I have that with China.

With Japan, I definitely had/have it. I lurve Japanese literature and dream of the day that I can read a Japanese novel in its original form. So I asked myself, what other language is like that for me? The answer seems to be French. There's a great deal of French literature that I have read (in translation) and loved. So maybe I should give that a try, eh?

Hopefully this gives you a bit of an insight into what goes on in a JET's mind as the second half of the contract year progresses. Everyone I know is going through a similar mental struggle at the moment.

"What do I doooooo!"

"I can't just go back to nothing, so what am I gonna go back to?"

"Japan's been awesome, how can I possibly do something as awesome when I go back?"

"I have no skills and I don't want to keep being a teacher. I'm screwed!"

That sort of thing. Even people who had a clear-cut plan before coming to Japan seem to second guess themselves a bit. A bit. It depends on the person.

I don't know if I could offer any advice to people about to enter JET. The only thing I could think of it "Keep your eyes open to any and all options." But honestly, that doesn't always work. I think you just have to be prepared to figure out what you want out of this point in your life and go for whatever that is.

Me? I'm gonna be polylingual.

~Jeff

Remembering the Red Men

Just a short post today. I don't have a lot of time, just wanna update you on the Saidaiji Naked Man Festival (Hadaka Matsuri).

To put it shortly, the festival was amazing. If you come to Japan and are here while it is going on, you MUST see it. There's nothing like it anywhere. At least, not that I know of.

It was admittedly pretty chilly outside, as it was nighttime in the middle of February. Given, though, that there were 4000 men wearing nothing but a loincloth (fundoushi), a pair of socks, and the skin they were born with, I decided not to comment on the weather. Hidden beneath four layers of fleece and windproof jackets, I really was in no position to complain.

Then I saw what they had to go through. While preparing to make the run into the temple, the men joined arms and had to run through a series of locations where shop owners, passersby, and firemen threw ice cold water at them. In a show of manliness, though, they simply turned that freezing water into steam as soon as it touched them. Alternatively, it may have been a show of drunkenness and simple body heat, but my bet is on manliness.

Finally, after charging through an ice cold pool that (I suppose) is meant to purify you before you enter the temple, the thousands of men converged. The result was a fleshy mound of butts, hands, and fundoushi. For the better part of an hour, they swayed along the stone temple steps, sometimes falling down the aforementioned steps in horrendously painful-looking avalanches. At one point early on, the police were needed and somehow, using what looked to me like Roman centurion tactics, forced their way into the center of the throng to retrieve a man. From what I've been told, he was either a trouble-maker or an casualty of the unrestrained masculine forces surrounding him. He looked like he could barely move as they pulled him out, so I'm guessing it was the latter of the two options.

Eventually, once the holy sticks had been retrieved and liberated from the killing grounds, they red men trickled away. That was the sign for us to begin our true drinking. Much of the remaining night is now a black haze for me. I know there were at least two bars and karaoke was involved. I also know that nihonshu is now my nemesis. Alternatively, it may be my kryptonite. A nemesis can be defeated, but I don't think this is a battle I could ever win.

At any rate, I trust the night was a good one. Best of all, more goodness is yet to come. Such is life in Japan.

~Jeffles

It's that time of the year again...

Happy Valentine's Day! And, for those of you who didn't know, Happy Birthday to me!

Yup, that's right. Good ol' Jeffles has aged yet again. He just can't stop! He's like a rabid badger on fire, running for a shiny, silver river! Not a damn thing could slow HIM down!

Sorry, I went a bit overboard there. I can't help it, birthdays always make me want to be silly like that. Actually, every day makes me want to be silly like that. Birthdays are just another day. Hrm.

Anyway, yes, I was born on Valentine's Day. That usually gets one of two replies, which tends to be divided along gender lines. From girls: "Aw! That's so cute!" From guys: "Huh." This is often followed up by a declaration that I'm incredibly lucky and that the girls must looooove me. Well, let me tell you! They most certainly do!

Wait, no, that's not what I meant to say. I meant to say that a Valentine's Day birthday actually kinda sucks because, on my birthday, all my friends are either with their girl/boyfriends or thinking about the boy/girl they wish they were with.

When I was a little kid, probably in Kindergarten, I discovered for the first time how poorly timed my birthday was. Valentine's Day rolled around, just like it does every year, and I trudged through the February snow to my school, just like I did every day. (In fact, I was probably driven there and had barely even touched my feet to the ground before I was inside the school.) Then, a wondrous thing happened. People started giving me cards. I did as my mother had told me I should do and gave back some cards. They were, as best I could figure it, thank you cards for all the cards that THEY had just given ME.

The day ended and I ran home (again, I was probably driven, but let's pretend I ran). When my mother finally came back from work, I proudly showed off all the many birthday cards I had received. It was clear as could be: my classmates loved me and praised my very birth like it was a holiday.

Barely restraining her laughter, my cruel mother then informed me that I was slightly misguided. Those were not Birthday cards in my hands, they were bloody Valentine's Day cards.

Ever since then, I must confess I've held a little grudge against the day of my birth. It's like the world saw me coming and thought "Nah, this guy's just too awesome. He's gonna have to be born on a day that can steal some of his glory or else none of the rest of us are gonna have a chance!"

Well fuck you, world. You can't bring me down!

This is why I, in fact, rarely celebrate my birthday on the actual day itself. Usually I designate the nearest weekend as party-time. Then, on my actual birthday, I tend to sit at home with a beer and be antisocial. This year, my beer of choice was Asahi and my antisocial activity of choice was watching Annie Hall. Pretty good movie. Not great, in my opinion, but pretty good.

This year I have two celebrations. Sort of. The first one was last night (the day after my birthday, a.k.a. February 15th). An influential townswoman who is very kind to us ALTs here in town took a few of us out for dinner. A few days beforehand, another ALT here in town informed her that I had be unsuccessful in acquiring the fabled Kobe beef during my recent trip to Kobe. So, wise woman that she is, the townswoman took us to a yakiniku place which, in her words, had even better beef than Kobe!

Well, I can't quite say if that's true or not since I've never eaten Kobe beef. But I can say that this was, without a doubt, the most delicious beef I have ever tasted in my life. I can hardly even comprehend the idea that more delicious beef might actually exist. Look, I even wrote a haiku about it.

This thick red wagyu

ravishes me to my depths...

joy unrelenting.

Sure, it's not a haiku in the truest sense - while beef is a natural product, the poem isn't exactly about nature - but I think you'll forgive me and enjoy the sentiment. Normally, I prefer my steak to be cooked about medium. Too much blood at it turns me off a bit; I want to feel like a civilized human eating a civilized meal, not a stranded castaway who couldn't cook his meat because the rain had prevented him from building a fire. But this beef... my god. Cooking it beyond rare would be a fucking tragedy. This is how good it tasted: if I died today, I would be satisfied knowing that I had eaten of the finest foods that mankind could even conceive of creating.

But enough about that. My second celebration is going to be this weekend, at the Saidaiji Naked Man Festival, also known as the Hadaka Matsuri. It promises to be a riotous good time and a sizable group of us have rented out an izakaya in the city for an after party. And to those who are wondering: No, I am not participating in the festival. It's not because I don't want to, but rather because temple rules disallow anyone with a tattoo from participating. :(

Anyway, I will have a good time regardless. It will be cold, but fun. I doubt it not.

Next week, I'll let you know how it all went.

~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 End of the Death Machine

Huzzah! I have survived the flu! I am victorious!

And while most people realized I was sick, they didn't realize I had the flu. After all, if I had had the flu, I obviously would have been wearing a mask, right? Well, no. Because those masks are worthless by the time you realize you have the flu. I explained this to those who asked, but I don't think my explanation was really accepted. The reaction seems to have been more of a "stupid gaijin is going to make us sick, but we don't really want to insult him, so let's just nod our heads."

Well, whatever. I didn't make any of them sick, so they can... go be not sick. Yeah! *Makes GRR face*

In other news, we recently had a meeting in which I was forced to finally inform the people here that I am not renewing my contract. That's right, Jeffles will no longer be in Japan in six months. :(

But it's the right choice. I've discovered since coming here that, (un)surprisingly, teaching isn't really my thing. I never really thought it would be, but I had to try. After all, if there's one thing I know, it's the English language.

I have, however, since discovered what I think I would like to do for a living. It's hard to say that I'll still want to do it ten or twenty years from now, but it certainly seems to be a job that fulfills all the things I want to do. What is it exactly? It's the US Foreign Service!

Now, now, I can hear what you're thinking. "But Jeffles! You're not even American! And since when did you care about politics?"

Well, to answer the first point, you forgot a key word. I'm not American yet. I do have a Green Card, ya know. And I have sort of been living in the US for nearly 17 years, so I practically am American. I just have to spend a couple more years in the US, then write the citizenship exam and BAM! Problem solved.

And to the second point... I do care! I care a great deal! I just tend not to actually say anything for a variety of reasons. First, I don't want to accidentally piss someone off. Second, I've always been slightly paranoid that people are watching me and waiting for any sign of dissent in order to deport me. O.O And third, the only people who actually ask my opinion tend to be asking my opinion on stuff that they've looked into extensively and I haven't. Like the status of the current debate on the validity of the thirteenth amendment. (I just made that up. I don't know if there is such a debate or what the thirteenth amendment is... though I will certainly find out.)

(Huh. Maybe I should have chosen a different amendment. Apparently the thirteenth amendment is pretty much uncontroversial. Way to go, Jeffles, implying that the abolition of slavery is controversial. >_<)

So yeah, Foreign Service. I think it would be pretty cool. Travel the world, be a diplomat, be a PR agent for the United States, learn languages... cool stuff. Speaking of which, I've started learning Mandarin Chinese. So... if you wanna help me out with that, please let me know.

I can hear you. You did another double-take, didn't you? Yes, I'm living in Japan and studying Mandarin Chinese while trying to function in Japanese. Don't be confused, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Why not Japanese? Well, you apparently don't get a lot of points on the Foreign Service Exam for speaking Japanese. And if the Foreign Service thing doesn't work out, Mandarin Chinese is going to be pretty damn useful for me anyway. So it just seems like a smart thing to do on the whole.

In fact, Mandarin Chinese is not the only thing I'm studying. I'm going to have to probably get a Master's degree in something if I want to be competitive for the Foreign Service, so I'm doing a little self education to fill in a few gaps before beginning the applications. Mandarin Chinese, US History, US Civics, and Finance and Economics. Got a timetable and everything.

If anyone knows things about the above topics, please get in contact with me. I'm currently using Wikipedia, FSI, and Khan Academy to inform myself about the above stuff, but the reality is that I'm just pleading with the internet to inform me. If you or someone you know actually is informed about this stuff and can point me in a helpful (introductory) direction, please let me know!

Oh yeah, I have a working electric heater now. No more propane death machine for me. Life is good. Damn good. :D

Cheers,

~Jeffles

Attack Of The (Killer?) Flu!

The flu has come. The season has arrived. And are we ready for it? Maybe.

On the one hand, Japan seems to take this stuff seriously. Every day at the office/teacher's room, I overhear phone call after phone call talking about influenza. For weeks, teachers have been asking me, "How are you feeling? You know, the flu is going around." I've heard that at some schools, teachers are even showing kids videos on how to defeat the evil flu monster, should they encounter it in their travels. And of course, there are veritable hordes of people wearing those oh-so-effective face masks.

At some of my schools, classes are running at minimum capacity. I say minimum capacity because there actually IS a minimum capacity. If more than a certain percentage of students call in sick, that entire class is told not to come to school. I'm not sure what the exact percentage is, but let's just say, for the sake of this example, that it's 40%. If more than 40% of grade 5 students call in sick, no one in grade 5 is allowed to come to school. But grades 1-4 and 6 would still have to come to school. The threshold hasn't been passed at any of my schools yet, but I know of a few other towns nearby where it has been.

This in particular is kind of interesting to me. Usually it's impossible to take kids out of a classroom. Suspensions and expulsions, for example, simply don't exist here. At least not in Elementary and Junior High School. This is because, in Japan, children have a constitutional right to be in the classroom. (Senior High School is the exception because mandatory education ends after Junior High School.) So when I say that the Japanese really seem to take the flu seriously, I mean it; they'll break the fucking constitution in the name of the flu.

On the other hand, they seem to lack many basics. For example, it's considered extremely rude to blow your nose in public. Even if you happen to have a packet of tissues on you, you'll have to find some way to excuse yourself every time your nose starts running. And when you're in the middle of teaching a class, that's pretty damn difficult. And god help you if you sneeze and have end up with a booger hanging loose.

Also, I have yet to see a single Japanese person so much as possessing hand sanitizer. But I suppose that's not too surprising given that most people's idea of washing their hands is to splash a little water on their palms and walk out the door. Actually, I exaggerate. Usually they just walk out the door.

Anyway, strange hygenic practices aside, it's certainly been somewhat interesting to be in Japan during a flu outbreak. Unfortunately for me, I have also become a victim. Today is day four and, while I'm finally starting to feel a little bit better, it's probably going to take another two or three days before I'm feeling up to scratch. Which sucks, because I was planning to go to Tokyo this weekend.

Poop.

I have noticed something interesting, though. All of my schools appear to have been forewarned as to my sickness. Allow me to illustrate with an example.

It was about two days ago. I had just finished up lunch after teaching all morning and was heading to my afternoon school. It's a pretty cool place, one of my favorites actually, but it's a twenty minute bike ride in the cold. And half way through it started to snow. While I was shivering from fever.

I suppose I should have just taken a sick day, but you should know that things are never that easy in Japan. Taking a sick day means first taking off vacation days when I call in to say that I can't go to work. Then I have to go to the hospital to get a doctor's note saying that I'm too sick to go to work. After acquiring such a note, only then am I allowed to exchange the used vacation days for sick days. Unfortunately, I was neither convinced that I possessed the Japanese skills to get the correct note nor certain that I was sick enough to be excused from work. And given that I only have five vacation days left, I didn't exactly want to give them up. So instead, I gaman'd.

I arrived at the school and, as normal, proclaimed a loud "konnichwa!" to let my presence be known. I slid open the door and, almost immediately, was asked by the head teacher if I would like some miso soup for my cold.

Remember, this was only the second day of my illness. I had barely told anyone that I was sick, and absolutely no one I'd told was connected to work. So how did she know? And clearly she did know, because she'd been waiting for me with miso soup which had clearly been prepped and cooked in advance of my arrival. I can only surmise that one of my coworkers had noticed I was sick and spread the word.

This soon proved to be the case at every other school I went to. While no one else had prepared miso soup for me, they had all clearly been forewarned. There were cough drops and cups of tea waiting for me on my desk, that sort of thing. Which is kinda creepy when the only way they could have known that I was sick is by either stalking me or being told by someone else who knew.

Life in a small town, eh?

At any rate, I hope that this time next week I'll be feeling great again. I'll let you know then (yay another blog post!).

~Jeffles

P.S. As far as I know, no one has died yet from this outbreak of flu, which has spread all throughout Japan. But I'm probably just poorly informed and lots of old and already sick people have kicked the bucket. The title is just a bit of dramatic flair. Because flair is COOL.