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

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.

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

A Glimpse Into the Future?

Konnichiwa! Hisashiburi da ne?

(Google it if you don't understand.)

I would apologize for not having been around, but I have been around. Just, I've been on youtube. That's right, I have two new videos up! Watch 'em, love 'em, spread 'em around like hot butter on a slab of toast.

You can find them here and here respectively. The intro is new. Is it too long? Not enough sparkly transitions? Need more nearly-naked cat-girls? Let me know what you think.

So, I've covered a lot in the videos, but there's just no way to cover it all. That's what this here blog is for.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, my days have been so completely filled up that I honestly have no free time. That hasn't changed much. I think it will start to calm down a bit starting tomorrow, but only be for a short while. Once school starts up in September, I'm going to be crazy busy. I have eight different schools to go to, the majority of which require at least a half-hour bike ride...

Anyway, last weekend was yet another festival. It was really quite cool. I did take video of it and will be uploading another youtube jvlog soon, but there are some things that weren't captured on camera.

One of the previous ALTs, a successor of ours, came back to town for the evening. You see, he still had some things left here and needed to pick them up. He also was going to go to the Milky Way festival with us. So as a result, we all got to meet him.

I mention this because it is interesting to me. The majority of foreigners that I have met here in Japan have been people who are themselves new to Japan. We commiserate over our lack of Japanese language ability. We try to muddle through designing our first lesson. We come face-to-face, time and time again, with strange and weird Japanese customs. I won't even go into trying to navigate the train system. Then here comes this guy.

It's hard to explain what it was like to meet him for the first time. His hair, the color of granite, had been buzzed close to his head. Half his fingers were adorned with huge, intricate rings. Each one was different from the next, yet all were the size of small boulders. Around his neck hung a steampunk stopwatch that he said he picked up in Tokyo (or was it Osaka?) for about ￥2500. That it didn't work hardly seemed to matter.

Yet that doesn't really describe him either. He was a bundle of energy, but carried himself as if consciously subduing an inner beast that really, at the end of the day, just wanted to play. The first time I heard him speak, there were three young kids literally hanging off him to try and get the basketball in his hands. Without skipping a beat, he introduced himself to us, dislodged the children, and swished the ball.

As night fell and a dinner of somen noodles and incredible local fruit ended, we arrived at the festival. It was a bit of a drive as it was taking place up in the hills and we all lived in the town, but none of us really minded. It was something different, after all. Who doesn't like a little change of pace?

The minute we stepped onto the festival grounds, the scene transformed from one where we were simply strangers to one where gaggles of school children were swarming on our ring-clad sempai. What did he do? He reveled. Group after group after group came clambering over to him. He, cool as a a breeze on a hot summer day, dealt with them one by one, the smile never leaving his face. He took their energy and threw it right back at them. He challenged them to speak to us and they accepted the challenge, because it was he that posed it to them. They asked for pictures. They talked about their summers. They couldn't get enough.

And then he stepped away and left us. There were photos to take and he had to take them. Alone, we explored the festival grounds.

No one approached us. No one ran at us, shouting our names with glee. I bought some fried pork on a stick and chewed it thoughtfully, getting little more than a curious glance as the seller realized I was a gaijin. This man, our sempai, had only been here a year and had already garnered such a following. I supposed it was only natural. Kids are kids and they love strange things. He certainly was strange. And now he had moved on to bigger and better things. There was some sort of quasi-Christian, Buddhist sect in Kyoto that he said he was staying with. Soon they'd be sending him to Korea to further their mission of world peace. It sounded almost fictional.

Fireworks and a bonfire of paper lanterns plus tree brought the festival to an end. We returned to town. Our sempai took two of us out for drinks where, in spite of running on three hours of sleep, he displayed yet more of his genki self. At one point, he was so caught up in the story he was telling that he found it necessary to stand on his chair while he waved his hands and filled the one-room bar with his voice. No doubt drawn in by his energy, some guys at the bar top treated us to okonomiyaki and some dried squid thing (it was actually quite delicious). Finally, fatigue overtook us and we went our separate ways. He displayed one last act of generosity and paid for the entire night.

As I biked home down my narrow little street, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of man I would become in a year.

~Jeffles

Jeffles In Inaka

It's been a while. Honestly, I've been too busy to post much. Besides that, I don't actually have internet at home yet and there's no place with public internet access nearby. I have work, but well, it's work. Anyway, I figure it's okay for now. I get internet at home tomorrow apparently, so it's not like I'll be making a habit of this.

Right, I should explain. I'm living in Japan now. My blog title is finally accurate!

My town is a tiny place on the western border of Okayama prefecture. Well, I say tiny, but there are definitely smaller places. Out of all the inaka (middle-of-nowhere/rural places), we're probably one of the largest locations. Even so, it's pretty rural. I live in town, but the majority of the region is little more than hills upon rice fields upon yet more hills. It is absolutely gorgeous. I've already said that a thousand times to nearly everyone, but it bears repeating.

The street I live on is very much in the old Japanese style. It is a single lane (though traffic goes both ways, of course) that winds in something that may have been trying to approximate a straight line. The buildings on either side are largely wooden buildings with sliding door entrances. Nothing is larger than two stories and hidden alleyways lurk everywhere. Biking down the street is... well, feels a bit dangerous, but I haven't been hit yet. This is promising. I just have to ignore all the times I've almost been hit. :D

Next door to my apartment building is a Buddhist temple. If you're on my facebook, there's a picture of it there in my mobile uploads. I'm not sure what sect of Buddhism it is, though... to be honest, I'm a little intimidated by the place. I have yet to actually see anyone on the temple grounds. I could just pull out the gaijin card and wander in, but I'm trying to be a good neighbor!

Directly behind my apartment is what I've been told is a bar. I have to say that it looks pretty cool. It's kind of like a shed, the sort of thing that boys build in their backyard and claim as their fort. There are a couple shrines that surround it, too, and a small but well-tended yard in front. Some of the other ALTs and I have made plans to invade it at some later point... hopefully soon. It's another place I feel intimidated by...

I'm using a lot of ellipses today... I should cut down on that. Anyway, I hope that gives you a decent picture of where I'm living. My apartment itself is actually quite spacious. There's the genkan (entrance-way where you take off your shoes), a short hallway (about 15 feet long) with bathroom, washroom, and toilet room off to the side (each a separate room). Then there's a fairly large kitchen, a living room of equal size, and a Japanese-style tatami room of equal size. In Japanese measurements, it's a 6-mat room. For Americans/Canadians, I think that's about 9' x 9' for each room. It is, as I said, quite spacious.

As of tomorrow, I'll have been here for one week. It feels like twice as long, though, as every day has just been so full. Literally, every single day I've been busy. The first day we arrived, we had only enough time to get into our apartments and check out our bikes before we had to find our way to a nearby izakaya for our welcome party. Then the next day we had to set up our bank stuff and our phones (which took two days) and had another dinner out. The next day we went on a shopping trip for house items, finished getting our phones, and were granted an office-time trip to the art museum next door. That night was our first free night. I just went to sleep.

After that was the weekend and the summer festival (natsu matsuri). We had the days off to explore the town, but night time was reserved for the festival itself. The first night was the odori, or festival dance. As employees of city hall, we were expected to participate. That meant dancing in the streets for two or more hours. I lost track of time after a while. Because the dancers can't explore the festival stalls, though, we were all given booze and food for an hour before the dance began. The idea was: get drunk and dance. And yes, many people took full advantage. My alcohol tolerance didn't allow me to get super drunk, but I definitely appreciated the gesture. By the time the odori finished, I was completely exhausted. I checked out the remaining stalls and bought some yakiniku on a stick (which was so stringy - but delicious - that I nearly choked on it), hopped on my bike, and went home to sleep.

The next day was the hanabi (fireworks). It was also our sempai ALT's birthday (the ALT remaining from last year). So the town's local, unofficial, representative took us all out for some korean BBQ, which apparently is called yakiniku here (which confuses me immensely). Yakiniku means fried meat, which I thought was reserved entirely for fried beef, but I guess also refers to Korean BBQ. Anyway, that was super delicious and we headed out for the fireworks after. The fireworks were pretty spectacular themselves and I tried to take some video of it. Most of it turned out pretty blurry, but I think some of it might be usable. Apparently my camera is terrible at night-stuff. Sadness.

That marked the end of the natsu matsuri and the weekend. Yesterday I thought we would get some time just sitting around the office, but it turned out that we were off on a trip to the mountainous part of the area. One of us new ALTs has a house up there and will be teaching at schools in that area, so the bossman took us on a field trip. The mountainous area is, as is to be expected, even more rural and more beautiful. We drove around for a few hours and then got some ice cream, which was amazing. The day ended, I returned home, and I went to sleep again. Somehow, even that relatively easy day wore me out.

That was yesterday. Today has been much quieter. Our sempai ALT has gone back to the US for a few weeks. Apparently it's a big time for marriages. Go figure. I discovered that my washing machine doesn't work, so I got some help from one of the people around the office here and we went to my place to fix my washing machine. Hooray! Now I can have clean clothes! Super exciting, da ne? It was pretty funny watching him work. My Japanese isn't very good, so it ended up with him basically mumbling to himself and fiddling with things for an hour while I stood around like a scratching post. In the end everything worked out, though, and I am now eternally grateful. I was not looking forward to wearing curry-stained shirts to work.

That should more or less bring the internet world up to date. I could expand on any of the above points and illustrate the entire story, but this blog post is already long enough and there is just too much to cover!

Tomorrow the Okayama prefectural orientation begins. From what I've heard, it is not entirely useful, but I don't mind. I want to see Okayama City. And the final day we're going to Shiraishi, which is an island that has been described to me on several occasions as "a tropical paradise." I am quite looking forward to that. And it'll be cool to see how the other new JETs are doing. As I said, it's only been a week, but it feels like I've already been here for much longer.

~Jeffles