Nothing

"What country am I from?"

"New Zealand"
"Canada"
"You from Australia"
"You are from Australia"
"You are from New Zealand"
"You are from Ohio"
"I am from Japan"
"You from Japan"
"She is America"
"She is from Canada"
"You are from New Zealand"
"She is from Australia"

Sorry. The correct answer is "You are from America."
Seriously, I mean... c'mon guys!



Not much going on lately.
Yesterday a 2nd year Junior High kid bit me as I tried to playfully cover his mouth during his very vocal version of charades.
Today a 1st year was curious about the “ph” in the spelling of “Alphabet” when it’s obviously an “f” sound.
Oh, the joys of teaching.

I got an international money order today. Took a while, but it was very easy and mostly just sitting and waiting while she typed up and printed things out. They have a set exchange rate though >.< 1 yen more than the current rate. Oh well, this a lot less hassle than sending it through a service and having to pay their fees AND bank fees.

As a surprise from my mom, I am going home for a week next week. I’m looking forward to it. I get to see my cats and eat tacos. Bliss.

Oh, and I found out my successor is from California. Maybe the America thing will stick in their heads after I go.

Ninjas, Earthquakes, and Gangsters

Last sunday was Ninja Fest! I got to walk around dressed as a ninja, went to Ueno Castle and the Ninja Museum, and go to do some ninja tasks like throwing shuriken (throwing stars)!







Ninja Van


Ninja's hiding spots


Ueno Castle made form postal stamps!


Ninjas wall climbing and picnicing

JUST THEN...

There was a BIG EARTHQUAKE!

It was a 5.4 and the center of it was about 25 min by train away, so really really close! I was on the ground having my ninja picnic, and it struck! It's weird because everyone is quiet and it sounds like thunder, but from everywhere, not just a place in the sky. A tremor occurred about a minute afterwards in which I screamed a little from nerves, and got laughed at a bit. I don't understand how people think something with such remarkably easy potential to hurt and kill is fun.
I came home to find things knocked over, the extreme things were my TV stand moved, my smoke detector was in the next room, and my coaster flew 7 feet... but my tall thin bottle of moisturizer had not budged!

As if there weren't enough violence as of late, I wake up to find the mayor of Nagasaki had been shot by a yakuza gang member from Japan's top gang. Mayor Ito "was a liberal and a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons... and urged Japan to get out from under the American nuclear umbrella."(Time) He was shot over not approving that the goverment pay for the gang member's car damage.

Today my supervisor showed me a picture of the ninja fest that was in the newspaper, asked if I was a certain person and if they were all foreigners. It wasn't me.. but the girl in the background had a purse very similar to mi--- wait a minute! That's me! I was in the photo after all!

I also placed my first letterbox there. woo!

Cherry Blossom viewing

Friday was another school party. This time the Junior High. Many of the teachers spoke to me for the first time. Alcohol lets you become friendly! I think they may like me more, now they know I do know some Japanese and they don't have to use English. The new English teacher is very bubbly and young, I hope we can hang out after school. I was invited to THE AFTER PARTY. Apparently, it is rare for JETs to be invited to these, so I was thrilled and of course I accepted! The BOE has asked Chris and I to do karaoke afterwards, but I'm not sure if that counts. Here, I chatted with the new principal and got a couple of cell phone email addresses and a new surfing buddy. I even sang a karaoke song in Japanese in hopes to impress.

After party:


The new principal wanted me to drink whiskey with him, thankfully, that was not on the all you can drink menu that came with our room rental.

After being immobile on saturday, cut to sunday:

Cherry Blossom viewing!
Osaka-jo (Castle) is one of the best places to see sakura (cherry blossoms) in all of Japan. You bring a picnic or even a grill, and set up under some trees and watch the petals fall.



VIDEO of the scene:


I'll leave you with the cute photo of the day, Farva eating a carrot:

Enaki

Last night was an enkai (drinking party) for the Board of Education to welcome the new people and give thanks to those who are leaving.
Before:


During:


It is customary to never pour your own drink. So everyone goes around to chat and pour drinks for each other. Even if your glass is full, they will top it off, or wait for you to drink some so they can refill it. I had a small glass of wine, probably a big bottle of beer, and 1.5 bottles worth of sake in total. Usually sake isn’t that great, but this was warm and very smooth. I was talking with some people in my department and my supervisor came over and someone says "Hello" in English to him. He shakes his head and says "I don't know, I don't know. uh, This is a pen." Which is THE standard learning English sentence, so even people who don't know any English know that (even if they don't know the meaning). That was the funniest thing ever that night.

Here is a picture of my supervisor and I, drunk.



The Japanese turn red when they drink, and I was surprised to see bright red faces appearing so fast. The former Jr High principal was getting pretty red (and even worse later) so I made sure to get my picture with him. At first he refused, saying “No. No. I am tako. My face …tako.” Tako means octopus, which is often portrayed as a comical small red cartoon.



The girls:

Terumi poked a crab eyeball on her plate and I literally screamed because it was so disgusting.

Here are pictures of me and Chris's specially prepared meals:


At the end of the night the organizer was trying to calm everyone down to say thanks and to yell “bonzai” three times and then leave. But the former principal asked me what tako was in English.
Whispering
Me: “Octopus.”
Former Principal: “Oc-to-poose.”
Guy beside him: “Octopus. Ah! 8. Like October. Hatchi-gatsu (eighth month).”
Me: “Octo is eight, but October is ten.” (I hold up all my fingers to mean "10th month")
Guy: “Oooh!”
Organizer: “JENIFAA!”
Everyone: laughter.

Felt like I was in Kindergarten! Everyone is waiting and I kept on talking.

We were done at 8:30 and I was in bed at 9:15 and up at 6:40. Mysteriously, I can’t move my right index finger without pain this morning.

We also saw an old man peeing with the door open. Oh Japan!
Oh, and I get to do this Friday too.

Sand from China

So remember my lovely mountains? Where are they?



Staring since Saturday and ending today (by the looks of it), sand from the GOBI DESERT has made my little town look like a smog-fest. So every year about this time, a dust storm in China blows over the Sea of Japan. I guess it is the "marker" that Spring has come.

Hmm, I thought all the cherry blossoms lining the street told me that?

Japanese Puzzles

Japanese Puzzles are taking over my life.

Sudoku

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

The day I left for Japan I bought a sudoku book. After a couple failed attempts at the ones in the newspaper, I decided to take it on and start easy. On the airplane, I figured it out and did a few puzzles. Soon I was mastering techniques and battling and winning against the more challenging. I even got a game for my Nintendo DS to play it on trains. I thought it would keep my brain sharp.

Nonograms
(aka Gridders, pict-o-puzzles, picross)

The object of the puzzle is to figure out which of the squares should be coloured in, and which should be left blank (or an X), based on the clues given for each column and row. The resulting pattern of light and dark squares then makes up a picture, which is the solution to the puzzle.

One day I decided I wanted to try something else. I saw these nonograms, stared at the instructions, but could not figure out how to do them. I read about how to do them on the internet and went out and bought a book. This proved very handy as I soon came down with the flu and spent my nights in bed filling in these little squares. I dreamed about the squares in my sick-induced night sweats. They have been my poison of choice for the past 1 or 2 months.

Slitherlink
(aka fences, loop the loop)

The objective is to connect horizontally and vertically adjacent dots so that the lines form a single loop with no loose ends. In addition, the number inside a square represents how many of its four sides are segments in the loop.

I had seen these kickin’ around in papers and puzzle books. As I had just gotten into nonograms, I wanted to exhaust that interest first before moving on to another puzzle. Yesterday I saw a Nintendo DS game for it. Brand new, but marked down from 2960yen to 980 yen (about $7.50ish). That’s a really good price so I bought it. I learned the basics last night and am ready to tackle more!

Sadly, once I am infected, the current puzzle virus is contracted by my boyfriend to feverous degrees. Who will be next?!

Oh no, while gathering this info, I found a new one called Bridges that looks pretty fun.

Get-o!

One of the main roads here, and the one I walk to the Town Hall, is lined with cherry trees. They are in the midst of blossoming so I will get a picture of the pink lined-street when it is in full swing.

Saturday Ed and I met with a woman I work with and her sister who studied in England for lunch at Denny’s. The feel of Denny’s was pretty standard (sans grease) but the food was distinctly Japanese family style. I was a little nervous about the meeting, but it ended up being really nice and I hope I can hang out with them again. Japanese people are always surprised you like Japanese things like food, music, culture, etc… I told them I like Japanese rock group Guitar Wolf and they were shocked. Apparently they did not view me as a rocker kinda gal. Oh, ps- I saw Guitar Wolf this past Tuesday.

Sunday was nice so we walked down to the shopping center. I bought a cheap game for my Nintendo DS (more on this in my next post) and saw an old Xbox for sale. The debate still rages in my mind about getting it.

We also stopped in a little arcade there that I had never been in. I thought it was mainly little kid things, but it ended up being a decent place! I do not play crane games because I might as well throw that money out of the window (although I have seen some Japanese use amazing skill and technique to fish things out of there). What I play is not at all arcades (although this one had three!). I don’t know what it is called, but because I have won 3 times now, I feel you have a lot better chance at winning.

I can’t find a picture of this. The internet has failed me.

What it’s about:

There are usually tubs with the prize sitting in them. You put your money in and choose the prize you want to try and win (usually out of 8-10). There is a Wheel Of Fortune type wheel, with positive and negative numbers. You land on a 3, your tub moves up 3 spots. You get a -1, it moves down one spot, etc. On most of them, when you get to 5, the tub flips over and your prize falls out for you to get. Hurray! When you have to get 5, most of the time you get 3 tries for 100 yen. There are bigger ones, with bigger prizes too. Huge stuffed animals, big detailed figurines, a giant box of snacks, rare neat things, etc. These ones usually go up to 7, and you have only one try per 100 yen.

So I’m walking along, looking at the various prizes, seeing if any of them are worth trying for. I see that in the giant prize version, there is a big bag of various Gloomy Bears.
It is lit up to 3, meaning, I only have to get a 4 or higher to win it! Seems like a deal. I decided I will spend no more than 300yen trying for it. I put in my 100 yen, and select the Gloomy Bear prize. I watch the number wheel spin and smack the button when it feels right to stop it!
-2.
I hang my head and sigh. I am not even going to bother trying to win since the light is now at 1. I start to walk away and turn around JUST IN CASE I do get an extra spin. I see the 4 light up. I see the 5 light up. I see the 6 light up. I see the GET! light up and my prize falls into the bottom. I am in a state of confusion and look down at the number wheel.
7!
I guess it had stopped at -2 and clicked over one more for suspense. I hit the jackpot number in one go! I was more than excited to say the least.

So now I am the proud owner of 2 Limited edition fuzzy Gloomys, 2 little Gloomys with hats, a solar powered head-rocking Gloomy, and 10 bean bag Gloomys. Rock.

Today is the first day of all the office and teacher position changes. We have 2 new people in my dept and a new director (yay!! I could not understand the last one). A good part of my morning was spent bored in a room full of the new teachers, rather than my normal, bored in front of my computer. At least I didn’t have to feign looking busy, just give a quick intro.
Right now there is some mass panic (not really). People are changing desks, so there are drawers moving about, pulling out of desks and cleaning, and trying to plug all the wires back in to the correct place (and hoping they work).

Chaos!

Ms. Bandou obviously sees the humor in 6 people trying to figure out cords behind a desk.

The desks have been change and now the lady that was diagonal to me is now right beside me. This would be no problem if she didn’t have the worst job ever. Besides stamping things and other official work, she some how also has the job of cutting the windows out of old envelopes for recycling. She also has to remove staples from packets and putting them in a jar. This creates a metal-on-metal-on-glass sound that hurts my teeth. The staple-remover also makes an awful slicing sound when the staple is on it. And then there is that damn binder with metal spokes holding it together. Sliding it on and off, on and off. Metal-on-metal is like nails-on-chalkboard to me. One more week, one more week, one more week…

Less and less am I able to "roll with the punches" when I don't understand things. As my ability to understand increases, my frustration also increases when I don't. Four more months, four more months, four more months...