Sick Day

After I finished all of my classes yesterday I decided to go home early because I was feeling really under the weather. I talked to my supervisor about taking the rest of the day off and she was quick to encourage me to go home and take care of myself. I had to fend off offers to take me to the doctor's but luckily they didn't press the issue. Japanese people are known for rushing ALTs to the doctor's office for every little sniffle so I felt lucky to get off so easily.

That night my supervisor called to check up on me and to see if I now needed to go to the doctor's. After I assured her that all I needed was sleep she then volunteered to buy me groceries on her way home from school. I told her that I bought some soup on my way home from school and that I should be fine for the next few days but that it was very nice of her to make sure I was ok.

When I woke up this morning I was still a little green around the gills and decided to call in sick. Luckily one of the English teachers I work with was in the office when I called because my poor vice-principal didn't know what to do with me when he heard me croaking into the phone that I was sick and couldn't make it into school today. While he went off to grab my co-worker I was placed on hold and was rather amused by the fact that my school's hold music sounds like an 8-bit video game soundtrack.

A few hours later I get another call from my supervisor asking if she should come over to my apartment to check on me because both the principal and the vice-principal were very concerned about my well-being. Maybe now I would like to go and see a doctor? I do my best to assure her that I will be fine in a day or two and that if I decide that I need to see a doctor that I will give her a call right away.

Around 5 o'clock my doorbell rings and I find one of my coworkers at my door. She just wanted to make sure that I was ok because everyone was very concerned and because the principal had asked that she drop by. Once again I have to convince my school that I am not, in fact, dying and that I am already starting to feel a bit better. Upon hearing this she says, "But you look awful!" Gee thanks.

45 minutes later my doorbell rings again and now it's my supervisor at my door! With groceries! She tells me to take what I need so I pick out the orange juice and the takoyaki and ask her how much I should pay her to which she waves me away and says, "Nothing! When I was a young woman living by myself my coworkers would bring me food all the time when I was sick! I always really appreciated it so I thought you might too." Originally she had said that whatever I didn't want she would take home herself but apparently I didn't pick enough things out of the bags because she kept pulling more things out saying that I needed the vitamins. By the time she was done pulling out the things I "absolutely needed" there was nothing left in the bags!

I love my supervisor! She is so sweet and is definitely like a surrogate mom to me here in Japan. And wouldn't you know it, as she was leaving she told me to call her in the morning if I needed to go to the doctor's. I'm half expecting a phone call at 7am.

I Want You, I Need You

*Disclaimer: this post is stupidly long and for that I apologize.*

Since I was going to be spending Christmas in Japan I decided to treat myself to a little trip down to Kyoto with my friend Jaimie.

She stayed over at my place the night before we left so that we could get an early start to the day. The alarm went off at 5am and we were out the door by 6:20am. Not too shabby. We caught the train to Takasaki and had to get our Shinkansen tickets upgraded to reserved seats because when Jaimie bought them that detail got lost in translation. Luckily we were able to get 2 of the last 3 seats available for that day. The downside was that we were going to have to be in the smoking car :( On the bright side, at least we knew we would have seats!

Once we got to Tokyo we transferred over to the shinkansen and settled in for the 2+ hour trip. Amazingly, the smoking wasn’t too bad and it didn’t really bother me. What did keep irking me though was something that sounded like a cat meowing. I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it a cell phone? A kid making a weird noise? What the hell could it be?! It was rather quiet and out of place so it took me a while to locate the source. One seat back and across the aisle was a cat in a bag. Go figure!

We arrived in Kyoto around lunch time and met up with a friend of Jaimie’s named Wayne. He’s a rather nice guy who hails from Texas and mysteriously lacks an accent. We threw our bags in a locker and grabbed some tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) for lunch which was quite tasty and a welcome sight after being on trains all morning. 

Once we had refortified ourselves we headed out to meet up with another Gunma JET named Lee and his girlfriend Masao to go and see the rock garden at Ryoanji Temple. Unfortunately, we didn’t have overly long to explore the compound because the sun started to set around 4:30pm.

After that we were supposed to go out and grab dinner at a buffet Lee had heard about. Jaimie, Wayne and I were all still too full from lunch to think about eating vast quantities of food (even if they were local favourites) so we opted to go to a fancy sweets shop in the Gion district to eat parfaits instead. I chose the vanilla ice cream with cinnamon and thick, dark sugar syrup which was super yummy! The rest of the crew (except maybe Masao) felt a little sad at the fact that their parfaits were super Japanese and contained vast quantities of jelly.

The next day Jaimie and I had Starbucks for breakfast and I nerded out when I saw that they sold almost all of the Japanese city-specific Starbucks mugs. I had been wanted to buy one but the only places I had been to (Tokyo and Kyoto) had rather disappointing designs. I debated buying a few of them but settled on getting just the Hokkaido mug. I don’t really know why it has a polar bear on it but I figure it’s best not to question these types of things.

After breakfast we went to the Matsu Grand Shrine and walked over to the Arashiyama district. We grabbed lunch at one of the first places we saw because it was raining and we were given a 5% off coupon. Score! I had a super delicious rice bowl that had beef, egg and cheese. As we ate we were able to look out over the river and mountains as the mist rose from the pine trees. It was a really enchanting sight and I probably should have taken a picture but I’m lame so now you’ll just have to use your imaginations! A thousand apologies.

After lunch we walked over to Tenryuji Temple and found the bamboo grove. The path that winds through the bamboo was really pretty and well worth the search it took to find it. One the other side of the path we stopped to look at a map that was only written in Japanese to see if we could loop around somewhere to get to a bus stop. As we were doing this the group of young Japanese men who were smoking nearby commented, in Japanese, that we didn’t understand Japanese >.< I understood that! I just didn’t happen to know enough to tell them off so I guess they weren’t too far off the mark.

We managed to find our bus stop and took it up to Daikakuji Temple only to discover that it was probably closed seeing as how we were the only ones wandering around. We took a few photos and then quickly left because it was super creepy with no one else around!

Pond?

Back at the bus stop we discovered that we needed to walk for 25 minutes to get to another bus stop that would take us to the Golden Pavilion. A nice lady gave us directions but all we could make out was 25 minutes, turn left, and pond. Miraculously, we managed to find our way to the pond. Or should I say dried up lake. We wondered around in a confused fashion for a while as we tried to get our bearings until we found a bus stop that happened to go where we wanted. As we were looking for when the next bus would arrive a kindly old man wandered over to us and told us which bus to take, when it was coming and a little bit about the local history all in perfect English! I think he had been watching us wander around because as soon as he finished talking to us he turned around and wandered away again.

We got to see the Golden Pavilion which was the second time I had seen it in a month. It was still there and still pretty so that was good to know :P Jaimie had never seen it so I agreed to go there with her since it was one of the highlights of my trip with my dad.

After that it was time to head back into town and meet up with our friend Amy (also from Maebashi) and her friend from America, Angela. Wayne joined up with us a short time later and we all set off together to find a ramen shop that was rumoured to be the best in Kyoto. Like most local restaurants it was a little tiny hole in the wall and didn’t have any English menus but luckily for us Wayne knew enough to translate the majority of what was on the menu. We all ended up getting the set which included ramen and karaage chicken. It was by far the best ramen I have ever had and the karaage chicken (think popcorn chicken but better) was to die for. The best part about it was that the 3 pieces of chicken which turned out to be the size of your fist! The size of the ramen bowl was nothing to sneeze at either! All of this came to about $8. Not too shabby!

The next day was New Year’s Eve and we had decided to go to Osaka for a day trip and to meet up with Lee one last time. We toodled around in American Town (or was it called Little America? I can’t remember) for a bit and then found ourselves in a massive shopping district. Seeing as Osaka is known for its okonomiyaki (it also happens to be one of my favourite Japanese foods) we decided to stop and have some for lunch. The wait took a while but it was well worth wait!

After we said good-bye to Lee we continued to wander through the shopping area. As we were waiting for the light to change at an intersection a Japanese guy in his 20s came up in front of me and started doing Luc’s Happy Birthday Dance while saying, in English, I want you, I need you over and over again. As he was nearing the end of his dance he went down on one knee and looked up at me, pointed and said “you!”. It was too funny! We had a brief conversation in Japanese and then the light changed so we had to say good-bye but I wish that I had just stayed and talked a bit more with this guy. He made my day :)

Once it got dark out we decided to go to the Osaka Sky Building to get a night-time view of the city. On the way up the elevator, and then subsequent glass escalator that was suspended between the towers, I spent the entire time trying not to hyperventilate. It was terrifying! But the views were gorgeous and I made myself go up to the open air terrace and walk around the circle, pausing only to take a picture in each direction, before running back into the safely of a securely enclosed space.

Wishes for the New Year being burned

We went back to Kyoto and met up with Wayne to ring in the new year Japanese-style. We had decided to go to Chion-in Temple to see the monks ring a giant bell 108 times to purify you for the new year but accidentally went to Yakasa Shrine instead. By the time we realised our mistake it was too late to run over to the temple so instead of hearing a bell ring 108 times we heard a drum beat once. Whoops! It was still a neat experience and it had been snowing all day so it was really pretty and made me think of home.

After 3 days of running around all over the place Jaimie and I decided that we needed to spend New Year’s Day in a more relaxed manner. We woke up at nine instead of our usual 7:30 and ate at Caffe Excelsior. I had a maple latte and a caramel scone and could have wept at its deliciousness.

After breakfast we headed over to Kiyomizudera temple where I discovered that I had forgotten my camera at the hotel. Blargh! It really was a shame too because the temple grounds were really rather unique. There was a large balcony which overlooked the rest of the compound and allowed for some really spectacular views of Kyoto.

Inside the temple was Jishu Shrine, which is known as Japan’s love shrine, and people come from all over the country just to visit it. There are 2 stones that are placed roughly 20 feet apart and if you can navigate from one to the other with your eyes closed you will be assured of finding your love match. The shrine was far to busy for anyone to try it which is too bad because it would have been a lot of fun to watch someone try to do.

Back in Kiyomizudera there are 3 waterfalls that you can drink from with each representing a different life wish. It is considered greedy to drink from all 3 though and if you do it assures bad luck and misfortune so you have to choose carefully. The different streams represent health, wisdom and longevity and, as fate would have it, none of them were labelled. So I drank from the one closest to me and prayed for health. Hopefully it doesn’t work like a birthday wish and by telling you what I wished for I didn’t blow my chances at having a healthy life…

The next day we just spent shopping around Kyoto because we were both a little temple-ed out. We also tried to change our shinkansen tickets to reserved seats but discovered that they were already booked solid for the day.

On the final day of our trip we discovered that our shinkansen tickets had been bought for the wrong day so we needed to have them stamped by a station master. Luckily it wasn’t a big deal and all we had to do was go through the manned gates instead of the automatic ones. As we fought our way onto the unreserved car our joy in finding seats was short-lived as we discovered that we had managed to get on the only smoking car allotted to people without a seat reservation so naturally everyone and their dog was smoking >.< Blech.

On our final leg home from Tokyo Jaimie and I somehow managed to get on the wrong train and ended up in Ibaraki prefecture. That little detour ended up costing us about an hour and a half of extra travel time. Nine hours and seven trains after we left Kyoto I finally made it home. It was a day from hell but the beers I bought at Takasaki station helped it go down a little smoother.

Cheers.

Christmas in Japan

A bunch of my friends in the area had decided to stay in Japan over the holidays for one reason or another so my friends Alice and Sean decided to have people over to their place on Christmas so that everyone had somewhere to go (and that no one was left alone and crying in their apartment). It was christened the Orphans’ Christmas Party.

After work on Christmas Eve I went to the grocery store so that I could pick up stuff to make Nanaimo bars, mimosas and my Christmas breakfast. I had been planning to have croissants and nutella all week so I was super excited that I was able to get the last 4 mini-croissants at the bakery.

When I got home I started to whip up some Nanaimo bars for people that would be at the party the next day because I felt I needed to bring in a little bit of Canada considering that everyone there would be American. They turned out super de-lish and the whole pan was gone by the end of the party. What really surprised me was that half the people there had never even heard of Nanaimo bars! What sad lives they must have led. I’m glad that I could show them the light.

I skyped with a bunch of people back home on Christmas morning and opened presents with family back home so I still got to have a taste of the Christmas I was missing. It was great to get to talk with everyone and catch up.

Around noon Graham came by and picked my up for the party which was in full swing by the time we got there. Isaac had made some homemade eggnog that was so potent that I was hesitant to drink it around any open flames! Sean made everyone fantastic eggs benedict as we settled around the tv to watch Christmas specials from back home.

We wanted to have a traditional Japanese Christmas dinner of KFC and strawberry shortcake but you have reserve your bucket of chicken in advance and none of us knew enough Japanese to do that! Instead we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant by the name of Very & verY. Unfortunately the place was full by the time we got there so we headed to the mall to find something there.

I cannot describe to you how very strange it felt to be walking around a mall at 8pm on Christmas day! But that’s what we did and we found a pretty decent Chinese restaurant too.

And so ended my first and only Christmas in Japan. All in all I would say that it was a pretty good Christmas even though I was half a world away from my friends and family. Next year I plan on going big for Christmas to make up for it. Prepare yourselves.

Year-end Enkai

Last night was my school's year-end enkai (party). I was both looking forward to it and feeling rather intimidated by the thought that I wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone. But I was determined to enjoy my first real taste of what enkais are all about. The one that was held for me when I first came here doesn't count because only the English department came out and some of them brought their children with them so it was a rather subdued affair. But this party was for the entire office and they rented out a restaurant on the 12th floor of a hotel so I had high hopes that this would be more like the all-you-can-drink drunken goodness I was told about.

When I got to the hotel I didn't see anyone from my school so I decided to show my enkai flier to the person at the front desk to verify that the number 12 (1 of 2 things I was able to read on it) meant the 12th floor because no one actually told me where it was. My hunch was verified so up the elevator I went! When I got out I was welcomed by one of the teacher's dressed up as Naruto/Santa and the English teacher I have dubbed Mr. Fancypants (he always seems to be wearing Burberry!) was wearing a Mrs Claus outfit with sequined bunny ears. I could tell this was going to be epic!

I was given a number that corresponded to a random seat and found myself between the principal and the teacher I sit next to in the staffroom with the samurai voice. Crap, neither of these men speak English and the intimidation levels are off the charts. But as soon as I put my purse down the principal is doing his best to talk to me and sends someone off to get me a beer. I tell him that I will be staying in Japan for the holidays and we share a toast and drink up.

It was at this point that I realised that I was woefully under-dressed. I had asked my supervisor earlier that day what I should wear and she cheerfully said that there was no dress code and I could wear whatever I wanted to. So I asked her if jeans were ok and she very happily and excitedly said that that would be just fine. Everyone there was wearing suits. Son of a...

One of the teacher's near me, who I had never talked to before this point mind you, turned out to speak rather good English so I spoke a lot with him. He really seemed to like my answer of  "most" when he asked what alcohol I liked. It was a good bonding moment :)

Samurai-sensei also put in a valiant effort to talk to me. Turns out he is also a farmer and grows his own rice! He promised that he would bring me some so that's pretty cool. I hope he remembers because I would love to try home-grown rice! How cool is that?

Oh I should also note that Samurai-sensei make sure that I had beer, sake and red wine in front of me before  the first course was served. Between the two of us we polished off 2 bottles of sake.

The food was really good. We had a 5 course meal were each course was artistically arranged on the plate in small portions. It was a thing of beauty to have such good food in Maebashi.

We played bingo until everyone had a chance to win because there was a prize for everyone. Some people got crates of cup o noodle or curry and others got a drying rack for their clothes. I won a box of heat packs and memo pads which I am super excited about :) As I was leaving the principal gave me his prize too which was comprised of an Ultraman boot filled with candy! WooHoo!

I was asked to go the 2nd party by the English teacher who had the BBQ so I said that I would love to but when it was time to go I unknowingly attached myself to a different group who ended up going to a whiskey bar (seriously, all they served was whiskey). I thought that everyone would be going to the same place but I guess not. I hope he's not mad that I bailed on him >.< But at the whiskey bar, which could only seat 7 btw, I did get a very drunk and lonely middle-aged man singing a love ballad to me in English. It was magical :P

Visit With Papa

I just wrapped up my first visit from someone from back home and I've decided that I am really happy with my decision not to go home for the holidays. Now let me explain before my dad gets all upset and thinks that it's because I had a horrible time and never want to see him again! I say this because I think it would kill me to see everyone just to turn around and leave again. The first time I left it was for an all new adventure and an unknown world awaited me. Now I know what is out there and things are starting to become old hat so leaving people now would be like voluntarily stabbing myself in the heart. I just don't think I could do it.

But enough of my melodramas!

My dad arrived in Japan on December 2nd and stayed until the 11th. I was able to take 4 days off work because my students were writing their exams so that allowed me to have 6 days worth of travel time with the weekend thrown in there. We had decided that the best use of our time would be to check out Tokyo and Kyoto so that he could get a taste of both new and old Japan with a little bit of Gunma thrown in for good measure.

We spent the first 3 days in Tokyo and explored Ginza, Odaiba, Shibuya, Harajuku and Minato. We went up Tokyo Tower, saw the Statue of Liberty, the Imperial Palace, 2 traditional wedding parties at Meiji Shrine, and a Delorean!

We jumped on a shinkansen (bullet train) and headed to Kyoto for 2 more days of exploration. The highlight for both of us was going to the wild monkey park were you actually get to feed them providing that you are safely inside the little shack so they can't attack you :) We were warned not to look them in the eye but they never warned us that they would steal our stuff! One monkey lulled me into a false sense of security with his cuteness and then stole my info pamphlet! Cheeky bastard! I felt really bad about it because I felt like I was littering so I tried to chase the monkey to get it back but he was too quick. Well, that and I was kind of scared he would bite me and give me rabies...

I hope he found it informative

We never found any geisha but we did see some gorgeous temples and shrines! I think my favourite was the golden pavilion. It was stunning and we had at least 3 groups of high school kids come up to us and ask us questions and ask to have their photos taken with us so it was nice that we got to feel like celebreties for a day. It's about time people realised our awesomeness! They asked some rather difficult questions and my dad had to defer to me on a few like when they asked what our favourite Japanese word was (they laughed when I told them it was atsui (hot) but it served me well when I first moved here!) and who our favourite Japanese singer was. The group of boys were super impressed when I told them that my dad's favourite group was Bump of Chicken. It was either that or the girly group AKB48.

Golden Pavilion

Another really interesting place we visited was Nijo Castle. What made it so fascinating were the nightingale floors. In order to avoid assassins walking around undetected all of the floors in the palace sing when you step on them. I tried to walk softly and avoid having them creak but try as I might I just couldn't do it. And I was only wearing socks!

Back in Maebashi my dad busied himself by making me 2 cheesecakes while I was at work :) He also ventured downtown on one of the days and managed not to get lost. I was rather impressed by that because he had to take 2 trains to get there and every time we needed to find something in Tokyo or Kyoto he wanted to go in the wrong direction. If it weren't for my handy iPhone we would have been doomed! So the fact that he navigated my little train station is nothing to sneeze at. On his last night in town he bought me a Christmas tree and we spent the evening listening to Christmas music and decorating the tree. So now I have a little bit of home to keep me company and it brings a smile to my face everytime I look at it.

When Saturday rolled around it was time for him to head back into Tokyo and catch his flight home I decided to accompany him into Tokyo and see him safely onto the train that would get him to the airport. When we were about half and hour into our 2 hour train ride out there he casually mentioned that he meant to tell me before I got on the train that he would be ok and that I didn't need to spend my Saturday on a train. A little to late to tell me that now buddy! But as it turned out it was a good thing that I had decided to go all the way to Tokyo with him because he confessed that he probably would not have been able to find his connecting train and would have had to call me for help. I don't know how much good I would have been at directing him around Tokyo over the phone!

When we parted ways he got a teary eyed which threw me off guard because I think I've seen him cry maybe twice in my life! I was ok until I sat down for dinner that night and was hit smack in the face with the fact that I was all alone again. So I had a good cry and ate too much chocolate and came to the conclusion that it is a good thing that I am not going home for Christmas. It would probably kill me.

Visiting Principal from India

Last week my school had an Indian principal visit us for a few days so she could observe the Japanese school system and see what she could take away from it and implement in her own school.

She gave a presentation to my students and the major thing I took away from it was that I am doing a pretty decent job after all. I don't mean to sound self-congratulatory but you do start to wonder after a while if you are having any impact on the kids you are teaching. It can be pretty soul-crushing to put so much time and effort into lessons that seem to either bore the kids or confuse the heck out of them. So when I say that the biggest thing that I got out of listening to this principal's presentation was a bit of an ego polishing I say it unabashedly.

Her accent was really difficult for the kids to follow and she spoke at a fast pace even for a native speaker. Add to that the fact that she used really advanced English and you get a room full of kids who quickly lost interest and started talking among themselves. I felt bad for her because none of the teachers were even attempting to get the kids to stop talking and I'm not allowed to discipline them so I just stood there awkwardly and thanked my lucky stars that they were never this bad for my classes.

One thing the girls were interested in though were the henna tattoos. She had brought the paste with her and some of the girls wanted to have a pattern drawn on them. The guest principal was happy to finally have some interest from the kids so she obliged them. The one thing she forgot to mention though was that the ink stays on for a few weeks - but even if she did they wouldn't have understood her. So I ended up acting as an interpreter and let the girls know that unless they wanted the design on their hands for the next week or so they might want to wash it off sooner rather than later. As I suspected, most of them looked panic-stricken and ran to the washroom to scrub it off.

The teachers at my school also seemed a little put off by our guest because as she was used to running the show she would directly ask for things or say what she felt. In Japanese culture this is a bit of a no-no. There is a fine art to dancing around what you actually want to happen so that the person you are talking to is the one that ends up suggesting what you wanted in the first place. So once again I felt a bit of relief in knowing that, if nothing else, I was liked more by my colleagues than she was. It's the little victories that count.

Now I know that that sounds horribly shallow but please keep in mind that I have no idea if the teachers actually like me. Everyone is stand-offish and no one really talks to me about anything other than school related stuff. Even then, they avoid it if they can. So I was happy to see that I could be worse off. At least they don't visibly tense when they are talking to me.

I'm a Bad Blogger

Lately I've been faced with the undeniable truth that I am a bad blogger. I've been keeping track of all the things I want to share and the list just keeps getting longer. In my defence I have been super busy with really boring stuff and have been to mentally exhausted after work to want to type up stories about my life in an attempt to make it sound exciting and awe-inspiring. So I have been hiding behind my couch in the hopes that the list of updates will miraculously disappear and have published themselves. So far it hasn't been working. Maybe I should poke the pile with a stick from a safe distance.