Japan - Day 44

So I'm pretty sure I've been here for 44 days - I'm already starting to lose count. Let's see... 6 weeks plus 2 days... So that's 42 + 2 = 44, so yeah I think that's right. Nothing like a little math to stimulate the brain :P

I didn't get up to anything overly exciting this week. On my first day off this week I woke up earlier than I normally do so I could go downtown to my Japanese lesson. I guess the saying "you get what you pay for" stands true... The lessons are free - anyone wanna take a stab at how much I'm learning? ;) Haha. I am picking up some things, but I think I might have to invest in some *proper* language classes or hire a tutor or something. The two times I've gone to the lessons I've had the same teacher - "The One-Armed Bandit" Amy likes to call him. He's probably around 70 years old, a retired English teacher (that's not saying much), and he also has one arm - he lost the other to Polio as a child I was told (both times I went). He's super nice, just not exactly the best teacher... He moves very quickly before I've really had a chance to remember what we've just gone over. Plus most of the time he likes to just sit and talk in English about what's going on. ...It feels more like I'm helping him with his English as opposed to the other way around.

Speaking of the One-Armed Bandit, Amy and I are having dinner with him this Saturday. In my class on Tuesday he said one of his friends who owns a restaurant is moving to Canada (Nova Scotia, to be more specific) in the summer and so he thought it'd be a good idea if we (and by "we" I mean "I", but I made sure to get Amy invited as well) went there for dinner so he could explain his menu in English to us. ...I guess as practice? And how can you say "no" to a poor, one-armed, 70-something year old man? You really can't.

After my lesson I wandered around downtown for a bit and looked in a few stores... I went into one of the local markets and stopped by the fish counter. Now I hate fish and wasn't actually considering buying anything but the fish just seemed so fascinating that I had to stop and look. There were so many different kinds - various sizes and shapes - it was really all quite interesting. At one point a women came up and started restocking the prawn supply. Now to say that these prawns were "fresh" is an understatement - as soon as she moved her hand away from them they literally started to try and crawl away! I'm not even exaggerating. I was pretty drawn aback - talk about getting to know your food before you eat it! That was a little too much for me. After witnessing the prawns try to run for safety I carefully started to inspect the other fish nearby to see if any of them were gasping for their last breaths. Thankfully they were all quite dead. After that I was done with the market.

Yesterday, on my second day off I got to sleep in :) I enjoy my sleep. Amy and I didn't have any plans aside from going to see a movie. Wednesdays are "Ladies' Day" in Japan, so movies are only 1000 yen, normally they're 1800 yen at the theatre by where we work. We went and saw "The Holiday" even though we'd both already seen it back in Canada before we left. I haven't seen a movie at the theatre in over 6 weeks so I didn't really care. I used to see at least one movie a week, so I was really starting to go through withdrawal. "Babel" is coming out here in three weeks or so, so I'm hoping to see it when it gets here. I know I could just download it, but I think I'll save it for the big-screen. I'm already downloading "300" because I don't want to wait until June when it's going to start playing here.

The movie experience here in Japan is something to say the least. First off, when you go to buy your ticket you actually reserve a seat! We got seats H4 and H5. Kinda interesting. The theatre only seats about 120 people as well, so it's probably about half the size of a regular theatre back home. ...Maybe that's why they charge twice as much? As for the snack aspect, while it's much cheaper than in Canada, the selection is limited to pretty much just popcorn, french fries, donuts, and crepe sticks. No chocolate or candy - Kinda sad. You also can't get butter on your popcorn, the options are salt or caramel. The caramel turned out to be pretty decent at least. Oh yeah, the theatre also had a gift shop in it - very random.

It was back to work again today, and I have to say that the "weekend" (note: Tuesday and Wednesday for me) is never quite long enough! If only I had one more day... Just one. (Okay, or like 5 but whatever, nobody's counting).

Well that's all I have for now!

-Kotoni (how my name is spelled in Japanese)

Japan - Day 41

Some of you may have heard about the "little" earthquake Japan experienced this morning - and by "little" I of course mean *big*. The earthquake measured a 6.9 on the Richter Scale which translates into: it caused some serious fucking damage. Luckily, (for me at least), the epicentre of the quake was in the Ishikawa prefecture which is about 225 miles northwest of Tokyo. (Oita is about 615 miles southwest of Tokyo). I hate to admit that I didn't even know there was an earthquake in Japan until I got home from work tonight and read it online. It's probably a safe bet that many of you probably heard about it long before I did - kinda sad really, you know, since I'm living in the country n' all... Maybe I should turn on the TV a bit more.

Moving on to lighter fare...

After having dinner at a small Tex-Mex restaurant downtown called The Rosewood Cafe, Amy and I finally made our way out to a few bars! ...I think we must've been inspired by our waitress/bartender/cook who was clearly a little more than "tipsy" LOL. Oh and by "tipsy" I of course mean *off her rocker.*

We had heard about a popular foreigner's bar called "PEI" from a fellow English teacher that we met in our Japanese class last Tuesday, so we set out to find it. Surprisingly we didn't have too much trouble locating "the Canadian Bar" as the Japanese have dubbed the place. When we got there the place was packed! We had to squirm our way in to a table at the very back of the bar. I think it was someone's birthday so there were a bunch of teachers from the same company there. (Not our's). Some of them were friendly but unfortunately most of them weren't interested in meeting any new faces. ...Perhaps because they had already downed 40 jell-o shooters before we arrived. I dunno, just a theory? We left after two drinks for a bar we passed on the way there called "OK! Kid" - a Western bar named after the 1980's movie "Young Guns".

At first it seemed really sketchy (and so we should've known from its name) because we were basically the only people there and we were convinced that the two people working were conspiring to rob us - it's a long story. Anyways right before we were about to leave more people starting coming in so we decided to stay for another drink.

...The people that came into OK! Kid were pretty interesting folk. One Japanese man maybe in his 60's and his girlfriend who looked to be about 30(?) came in. She was crazy - her voice was so high pitched and baby-like - you really had to have heard it to understand. They were pretty friendly though - and bought us a round :) After them, a large group of people came in but we didn't really get to talk to them - from the looks of it though they were pretty far gone. Another Japanese man came in and we (tried) talking to him for a while, as well as two (reject) basketball players. Okay, so I don't know for sure that they're "rejects" but I'm assuming if you come to Japan to play basketball then you're not good enough for the NBA. ...I could be wrong though?

The people who worked there turned out to be okay too, and I don't think they were out to get us anymore. The one girl was from Mexico and really friendly and the guy was from Nigeria - I think both are going to the university in Beppu. We might go hang out with the girl and her group of friends some time once their new semester starts in April so that might be cool.

Hmm... Is anything else new? Well I mentioned briefly above that we went to our first Japanese lesson on Tuesday. It went alright - but I don't think I retained any of the new words/phrases that I didn't know beforehand. They gave us/we bought a workbook with the alphabet and key words and phrases in it, but so far none of it has stuck. I don't think I'll be able to read any Japanese any time soon! ...I'm hoping I'll have survival Japanese sometime in the near future. ...I know I should go back again this Tuesday, but it's so early in the morning! I know I know - it's for the best. I'll probably be able to drag myself out of bed for it. ...It's just sad having to wake up earlier on my day off than during the rest of the week :(

Japan - Day 30

So today I bought myself a brand new shiny digital camera :) I haven't exactly figured out all its features yet - but I have been able to set it to the English menu. (Progress people, it's all the about the progress - slow baby steps here). I bought my new toy in Fukuoka where Amy and I decided to go on our day off this week. Fukuoka is the city which we were originally told we'd be living in - it's the biggest city on Kyushu with 1.4 million people or so. Definitely nothing compared to Tokyo! It's a nice, relaxing, 2 hour bus ride away. (Note: slight sarcasm). To be fair, the bus ride *there* wasn't so bad. It was actually fairly spacious. On the way back however, it was an entirely different story! The seats were so small, it made the 2 hours feel more like 12! Plus it was brutally hot! At least the bus is cheap ($40 roundtrip).

We were told that the Tenjin area of Fukuoka was an amazing shopping district - but I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Sure there were plenty of stores, but they didn't seem... "special". Haha. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I guess just something different. Maybe we just weren't looking in the right area? ...After wandering around for a while we caught a bus and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Yes we try to soak up as much Japanese culture as we can get here! ;) The Hard Rock Cafe in Fukuoka is pretty much the same as the one in Toronto, and Orlando, and probably every other one around the world. We both ordered steaks and a drink... It was definitely the most expensive meal I've had in a while! But I guess it was worth it - not having a BBQ n' all. The food was alright, but nothing spectacular. Amy pointed out that our tacos last week were probably better. (That's not to say that the steaks were horrible, just that the tacos were pretty damn good! LOL).

I don't have anything else lined up for this week aside from going back to work tomorrow. Next week I might try to get to a language class on Tuesday morning but other than that I don't have anything planned for my days off... I'm sure something will come up though - maybe a trip further south down the island might be in order? I remember reading about a Venice-like gondola area somewhere around here...? I'll keep you posted!

For the record; I haven't figured out how/if I can post any pictures on this site or not. I'll keep working on it though. I might end up having to post them elsewhere...?

Japan - Day 24

Two updates in one week - pretty impressive. Usually I'm not on the internet long enough to get around to typing out my insane monologues. You should all consider yourself lucky haha.

First off on our day off in Usuki we found ourselves searching for a place to eat lunch. It was around 1:30 and almost all of the restaurants were already closed until dinner time. We ended up getting pretty desperate and agreed to just go into the next restaurant that was open. We finally found one and stepped inside to find ourselves in a three-tabled dining room with a row of extra seating at the bar. We grabbed ourselves a seat at the bar (so we could actually sit on chairs) and low and behold they had English menus! But after that is when things started to go downhill... The food was horrible so say the least - Amy was given some shrimp fully intact - that is to say eyeballs and all! After seeing that neither of us had much of an appetite left. My meal wasn't as bad as Amy's - I ordered some tempura and double checked with the server (who was actually a very friendly, and luckily very understanding, middle-aged women) that it was just vegetable. She assured me that yes, it was in fact vegetable (or "begitible" as the menu read) tempura. When my meal came there were *some* vegetables but it was mostly miscellaneous seafood, and not being in my, ahem, usual adventurous mood, I didn't feel like wading through and determining which seafood was edible to my Western palate. I ate a few pieces of the recognizable vegetables that I saw - eggplant, squash, and sweet potato and then left the rest. Yes, I felt bad for wasting so much food, but trust me it was for the best!

So Usuki turned out to be... Well... How to put this...? It made Oita look like a bustling metropolis! It was pretty "quaint" to say it nicely. Not a whole lot happening around there. The historical district was pretty cool - we saw lots of traditional style homes and a huge old cemetery. It was more of what I actually expected Japan to look like. (I'll try to get some pictures uploaded at some point in the next few days). I'm not sure if we're going to be cursed now for walking around and taking pictures in the cemetery but I'm sure Buddha is a forgiving god...? Maybe? And besides, we're gaijin (foreigners) so it's not like we knew any better. (I'm not sure how long that excuse is going to work for).

Also in Usuki we went and saw some stone Buddhas that were carved into/out of (?) the mountain-side. They were pretty amazing! Hundreds of years old and still in generally decent condition! (Again I'll see what I can do about some pictures). Not that the pictures will do them any justice, something like that just has to be seen in person. The stone Buddhas aren't unique to Usuki though, I hear there are similar sites elsewhere around Japan.We didn't get around to going to the limestone caves on Tuesday and I'm not sure I would've wanted to go then anyways. It was absolutely freezing! I'm pretty sure it was the coldest day we've had here so far, and it was insanely windy! I swear I almost got knocked off my feet more than once (and no I hadn't been drinking any sake!). Maybe we'll head back to Usuki to visit the caves another day, but I'm not sure having to endure Usuki for a whole day would be bearable a second time - yes it was that bad. Let me rephrase: Seeing and experiencing the town once was good enough to last a lifetime. ...Maybe we'll try to find some limestone caves elsewhere ;)

Today we lucked out and found a taco kit at the grocery store. For the modest price of $6.75 (or so) we had the most delicious meal I could've ever imagined. No, I never thought I'd be saying that about tacos haha. In all seriousness the food I've had here (with the odd exception or two) hasn't been all that bad. But to have something as "normal" as we did tonight just made me realize how different things are here. The fact that Japan is different than Canada is obviously a given, and it's not actually a bad thing, I think it's just that until tonight I didn't realize how different things are. Foodwise, it's especially difficult not having a proper oven or a microwave - there are only so many things I know how to make on a two-burner stove. I know I know, having any kind of epiphany out of tacos is pretty amusing. Prepare for more in the future. (I can only imagine what would happen if I got my hands on some perogies haha).

Oh yeah, so the other night we made spaghetti (again another normal meal) and we decided to have garlic bread to go along with it. When I asked the guy at the grocery store if there was any garlic bread he kindly walked me across the entire length of the store to the garlic. Not exactly what I wanted but I thanked him anyways and assumed that they didn't actually have garlic bread. So I found some garlic butter and bought a baguette. Back at home we tried to toast the bread in our "oven". And by oven, of course I mean the 2"x6"x8" fire death trap below our two burners. This "oven" is also heated by gas, and we managed to set the garlic bread on fire. I'm pretty sure it was only in there for a minute or two, but that was enough to burn all four slices to a crisp! I don't think I'll be using that device ever again! Luckily we have a toaster oven that's not gas-powered. (Just on a side note: I think I'm obsessing over these so-called "normal" meals just because up until recently all we've been making at home was stir-fries).

Alright well that's all the news I have for now. I'll see what I can do about those pictures later!

Japan - Day 21

I'm still alive in case anyone is still keeping track... I know you've all been anxiously awaiting my latest update with baited breath (or something like that).

Wow so 3 weeks! I have to say, I'm already beginning to lose count of how many days I've been here... Time seems to run together and I'm having trouble remembering what day it is (or which way is up for that matter).

Anyways...

I'm pleased to announce that tomorrow I have a day off! I'm pretty excited! Amy and I are heading into Usuki to see the limestone caves and the stone Buddha statues that the city is famous for. (I use the term "famous" loosely). There's also supposed to be a bamboo field and a nine-storey pagoda so that'll be cool to see. I have to remember to charge my camera before I go to bed tonight (not that it will hold a charge for the whole day tomorrow anyway - but a girl can try).

Since my last update I've accumulated almost 30 hours of overtime at work (most still to be served mind you). I guess Nova is pretty hurtin' for teachers here in ye ol' Oita. Now that I've had some time to grow accustomed to the job I have to say that I still don't mind it all that much. It is a bit tedious and repetitive but it's pretty straightforward and not overly stressful. Most of the students try hard and it's nice that there are only 4 in a class (not that you could fit any more into the "classroom"). Most times there are only 2 students and sometimes even only one! Those one-on-one lessons are definitely the most challenging. Having two or four is the best because you can have them remember the new vocabulary by playing role-playing activities - definitely a setback when there's only one of them...

The kids classes are... well... also pretty straightforward (since the lesson plans are already pre-made), but as anything involving young children go - sometimes things are easier said than done... Overall I'd say the children listen well enough and do all the activities, but there's always one or two that like to be annoying and bratty. When that happens there's not a whole lot you can do aside from, well, ignoring them haha. Kicking them out of the room isn't really an option... But I guess one or two devil-children out of a possible eight isn't too bad (knock on wood). I definitely prefer the adult lessons though.

Is anything else new? Not really. It's been a while so you'd think there would be...? Tomorrow I can finally go and pick up my Alien Registration Card, here's hoping that doesn't take up the whole day! I guess I've just been working a lot, and going out to dinner sometimes... I usually don't get home from work until 10:00 so there's really not a lot to do then (especially since the last bus into or out of downtown is at 9:30 or so...) I need to get into a bigger city where there's more going on!!!

In a few weeks the Cherry Blossom festivals will begin so maybe that will bring some more excitement. People gather in the parks to look at the sakura (Cherry Blossoms) and to eat and drink. ...One of the rare occasions where it's okay to eat/drink outside here - most days you'd just get glared at or even yelled at (as we learned the hard way).

Alright well now I have to go find my camera so I can plug it in.

Otsukairesama dess!