Christeph: On the Lam

I was on pipsqueak patrol this week for the first time, and aren’t they just the cutest? We sang, we laughed. Thankfully, no one cried.

Elementary school visits are kind of a tough gig, because I only visit each one like 3 or 4 times a year. This means I never really get to know my students or teachers. Also, because English is not mandatory in elementary school, the teachers don’t necessarily know much English either, which can be a stumbling block when trying to co-plan your lessons in the 5 minutes you have between classes. However, the kids are pretty forgiving, and are just excited that this weird new person is there that they can pull on and yammer to.

The fifth and sixth graders are pretty with it (English wise) and no one’s told them yet it’s uncool to answer questions in class, so they’re pretty enthusiastic and responsive.

I had to figure out some prizes to give out at the 11th hour, so I brought all these small neon colored post it notes from home, with a stamp, and made up these little notes to give out, which say “great!” on them (complete with a thumbs up)… I had to come up with something cheap and pretty to give out, because I have like 120 new students every day. I thought it was pretty cheesy, but the kids loved ‘em, and even came by after school, asking me to stamp special papers they had brought with me. I am such a superstar!

After school, I was invited to the Japanese Tea Ceremony club, where we took turns kneeling on tatami and frothing up tasty green liquid for consumption. It was a pretty fun and interactive introduction to this elaborate ceremony.

That night, Chris and I checked out this new restaurant which had been recommended by another JET. The chef speaks decent English, and he has studied cooking in Canada, Scotland, America (where he hitchhiked for like 6 months!), South America, France, and India. India! I can’t believe we can get authentic tasting Indian food in tiny Noshiro! It was the first time I had tasted something actually spicy (besides wasabi) since my arrival in Japan. In addition, he special orders Newcastle beer from Tokyo, so it’s the only place in town with tasty beer. I’m afraid to ask the bottle price. Still, what a welcome treat!

We asked this guy to just cook some stuff up for us. Some of the treats we sampled included:

• fish fries. these fish were a couple inches long (french fry size!), and fried up whole. I was a little displeased to see a plate of whole fried fish in front of me, but they ended up being pretty good. Couldn’t taste eyeballs or bones or anything. ;)
• basashi. raw horsemeat, which is a speciality of this region. My students have been telling me for weeks how good basashi is, so I swore I would try it ONCE. And it tastes just like sushi or carpaccio… raw but tasty. It comes with loads of ginger and garlic, so how can you go wrong, really.
• samosas. Fat fat fatty, but oh so delicious.

On the way home from our culinary feast, we spotted some familiar faces gathered in a little house, including our neighbor and local sashimi supplier. So we popped our heads in to say hello, and got roped into the gathering. Apparently, all the guys from the neighborhood get together once a month to eat and drink and just hang out. After giving Chris the largest bottle of alcohol we’ve ever seen (late birthday present?), they made us promise to come back and hang out next month.

So ends the best day ever.

Yesterday we held our second English Club meeting at the high school… both the students and i have this unspoken understanding that it’s not really English Club, as no one really speaks much English or wants to (trust me, I tried). What we all agree on is that we want to eat tasty food… which basically means I get to make 15 high school girls cook me whatever I want, all paid for, as long as it takes less than an hour. Yes!

Yesterday we did a macaroon/s’mores double whammy. If I have my way, these girls will never be hungry again for dinner on Tuesdays. We were missing an electric mixer for the egg whites which go into macaroons… so the girls took 2 minute shifts and whipped those puppies up by hand for like 20 minutes. THAT is dedication, my friend. I wasn’t sure how the macaroon thing would work out, as we kinda had to wing it… but in the end, everyone agreed we had achieved tastiness. The language of food…. is universal.

The s’mores were a big hit too, although less so the song (in English) that I tried to teach them to get them to feel the summer camp vibe. ;) Extra bonus: many Japanese marshmellows (which are tiny and incredibly cute… they’re like the size of a nickel) have a delectable fruit center, which added an extra dimension to the smores extravaganza. I think we all learned something new from the experience. Me? I learned that roasting marshmellows on chopsticks over a burner is an excellent approximation of a stick in a campfire.

Later that night, Chris and I were wandering around Jusco, our grocery store, and were graced with a surprise visit by 3 of my girls… I don’t know their names or what school they were from (I have like 1,000 students all together!), but we jumped on the opportunity and asked them for help shopping. We were looking for ingredients to make shabu-shabu, so we asked them if we had all the necessities… we were trying to find chicken stock, but the best we could come up with in Japanese was “chicken water”. Needless to say, this resulted in mass confusion, and no chicken stock was found. Instead, we ended up with some dubious looking dried kelp (seaweed?), which we are supposed to soak in water to make a basic broth. We’ll let you know how that works out.

Talk about your win/win situation: the girls get to teach sensei something, and I end up with dinner. Thanks for the help, y’all!

Yes, the neighborhood guys actually came through and did manage to hold a shindig for Chris’s birthday last Sunday. We’re not sure about the exact details; we know that we were supposed to have a party by the park at 5; we passed our neighbor on the way there (”hello”); we sat on the curb by ourselves for like 6 minutes; then he came driving up in a rush (from his house two blocks away), and told us that the party was now at his place at 6…. This all reeked of last-minute realization, but this didn’t really matter in the long run, because we ended up having such a rollicking time.

At first it was just us, and our neighbors, a family of 5. Our hosts fired up a number of goodies on an outdoor grill, which was lit by a 9 year old with a propane torch. Quite a sight to see.

I played volleyball with the kids out in the street, and cheered as Sakiko showed us her bright turquoise unicycle skillz. We played catch with Teppei, the youngest boy. When the ball went onto the roof of the tax office across the street, our neighbor lifted his 7 year old son right up there to go get it. Awesome.

We learned how to eat edamame “the right way.” We tried more sake and shochu. Chris graciously accepted a pot of little orange gerber daisies. We ate tasty veggies picked fresh from their front yard garden. I tried some crazy shellfish that you stick on the grill, then just pull out of the shell and suck down. We ate pork liver (earthy!), and the tastiest home wok’d noodles ever. I explained to the kids about toasting marshmallows until they’re puffed up and black, and then sucking them down while they’re still hot. We learned that you can write messages on the asphalt with sparklers.

Then the party really began. A few more guests and kids from the neighborhood joined later in the evening. One man brought a fish he had just caught that day, and he fixed us fresh fresh fresh sashimi, which everyone gladly devoured. Chris got more presents: a winnie-the-pooh towel, some hello kitty charms, and a japanese headband (hachimaki?), all 100% AWESOME.

We’re lucky to have such great neighbors who go to such extreme efforts to include us in their community and make us feel welcome. Thanks, y’all! We love you!

Brief cell-phone video of a Japanese ice cream truck driving by the house. No colorful pictures or bad electronic music here; just an alarmingly straightforward recording of a guy saying, in random order: oishii (tasty), ringo (apple), suika (watermelon), meron (honeydew). For some reason this evokes a low-level deep terror within me.

Sweet mother of all that is holy, thank GOD the temperature has finally dropped to something resembling reasonable!

So, even though I live in a boring little town where there’s nothing to do, somehow we’re always off doing something. Such is the glory of small town life. There’s always a little league game or a speech contest to attend. Or something tasty to eat, yum! Melon ice cream anyone? I’ve convinced myself that it is necessary to eat as much of this as possible before the weather gets nasty.

It’s kind of remarkable how regional and seasonal Japan is. Every season has it’s specific activities and food. Summer and winter are for festivals (I believe they’re supposed to make you forget how miserable the weather is), and then in the fall and spring you go view the leaves and cherry blossoms. Every region (maybe even city?) has it’s specific handicrafts, culinary specialties, and festivals. I always thought of America as a pretty diverse place, but I don’t think we have this kind of specialization… (I ask you, what is Escondido famous for?). I had expected Japan to be a pretty homogenious place by comparison, but this focus on region-specific goodies totally took me by surprise. It’s hard to explain. I’ll show you when you get here. ;)

Last week we attempted to get pizza delivered to our house, which was an adventure to be sure, but also a communication disaster and did not result in said pizza. At this point, I was tired, i was hungry, (was I was poor too?), and I went out in a huff to get something ANYTHING to sate the hungry tummy. We were on our way to some restaurant, when these guys hanging out at the local park start yelling at us to join them. We walk around the chain link fence to find our neighbor and several guys from the neighborhood having a little picnic. They clear seats for us at the table, and explain that it’s a little neighborhood festival, as they stuff us full of gyoza, yakitori, yakisoba, edamame, watermelon, and cucumbers. Oh yes, and of course the essential ingredient to any social gathering: liquor.

It was pretty dark at this point, and our neighbor pulls us over to the field where he and the kids (and us too!) light some little fireworks and run amok. Afterwards, we chill at the table some more, make a short speech in Japanese, and even do a little impromptu kareoke (why did someone bring a microphone to a picnic?) Some of the old men even get up to demonstrate traditional dancing with towels on their heads (not sure if that part is traditional or just a bonus). After some intense questioning, it was discovered by the group (okay, maybe I told them) that Chris’ birthday is this weekend on the 27th. At that point the guys are like “PAAAAARTY!”, and swear to throw Chris a birthday party the following week, especially since he’s the new guy in town.

You will of course be the first to know if this party Goes Down.

I am slightly hung over this morning, because… we had a night of carousing with another Noshiro JET last night! We finally connected with the other new guy. His name’s Francis, and he’s from England. He’s had two summer jobs in America; one in Indiana, and one in Utah, which means he’s spent more time in the middle of my country than I have.

He:s only been in town for a few days, so we introduced him to Bamboo House, which is the swankiest joint we’ve found so far. This place is pimped out with a huge golden Vishnu and they serve tasty goodies from all over the world, so it’s a great place to go when you need a respite from ramen, udon, and sushi. They’ve also got the cheapest and largest beers we’ve found in town so far.

And yes, you can get beer in vending machines here.

We took him over to our place after dinner… my predecessor left a prodigious supply and variety of sake, so we decided to have a little informal taste test. And I’m still feeling the repercussions. But I’d do it all again, no regrets. :)

This last weekend was kind of mellow. Chris and I tried to court adventure, but she declined our advances. We hopped on a train to check out the coast North of us. The plan was to check out a beach like area, and then proceed farther north to some huge bizarre water-wheel thingy that is some sort of tourist attraction.

Stop number one was Hachimori. The day clouded over, and didn’t exactly scream “beach party”, but we got out to look around anyway.

I think maybe there’s a reason why you never hear much about the Japanese beaches. What we found was a black sand beach (cool) with driftwood and detritus all over it (uncool). The whole area just had a generally unwholesome air to it. The spot was supposed to be famous for its sunsets, but as there was no sun, we didn’t get to verify this feature.

So we return to the station to find to our dismay that the next train through does not actually go much farther north, and falls several stops short of our next destination.

A quick note about trains here. Taking the train until this point has been so easy, cheap, and enjoyable that I had been lulled into thinking of the rails as a substitute for the subway lines I am familiar with back in the States. However, the lines run irregularly, so that there are huge swaths in the middle of the day when the trains just don’t run for a few hours at a time. There are also several speeds of train which run on the same tracks. Which means that a $4 trip on the slow train can all of a sudden become a $12 trip on the fast train. Then trains may just stop and turn around, even though there is more track and you had plans to go farther.

So…the JR train… not a subway.

Sunday was more chill. We went to the numerous Buddhist temples and cemeteries by our house to check out Obon festivities. this holiday is kind of like Day of the Dead, only without the candy skulls. everyone visits the graves of their ancestors to clean themup (the graves, not the people) and offer some flowers or food. Buddhist monks were going around to individual graves to pray over them. one could hear little bells ringing throughout the graveyard, or the rhythmic knocking of sticks together. it was a very contemplative environment.

Later that day we headed to Futatsui, the next town over, to explore. we were delighted to find a beautiful path along the river, which runs through some very lush green land. it was hot as horses though, so we kept our exploration short. Later we discovered that Futatsui has a set of city bikes. You can borrow one for free and go cruising around town. Very excellent.

In the absence of internet access at home, I have travelled an hour by train to our prefecture’s own Big City, the capital Akita.  The best internet access I’ve found is in the lounge of the Akita View Hotel, which is comfy and close to the train station.  I probably won’t do this every day, but I had to try it once.

The lounge people seem happy to let me sit here with my laptop for hours as long as I order something.  I was considering lemonade when I noticed that beer is actually cheaper.  And that’s nothing compared to grapefruit juice which is $8.

So anyway, it looks like it’s going to be another week, and possibly two, until we have internet access at home.  Now that we’ve figured out the internet access situation in town, posts here should be a little more regular (although posting pictures to Flickr is probably going to have to wait, unfortunately).

It is festival season here like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t think you could avoid attending a festival if you tried in Japan in August. On Saturday, we took the one hour train ride to the closest big city, Akita, to witness the famous Kanto festival. On the train ride on the way over, we happened to run into fellow JETs Nick and Nou, also commuting to the event. How fun to run into people you vaguely know when you’re out and about in Japan!

Most of the day Chris and I spent trying to complete errands. The two bank ATMs we tried rejected our Washington Mutual cards. Subsequently, we discovered the Post Office ATM works just fine for converting dollars to yen. Weird.

Then began the cell phone saga. (Chris takes over writing.) I’ve been itching to get fancy Japanese cell phones for both of us ever since Steph got accepted by JET. I had all the bells and whistles and plans and models picked out in May. So now that we had our hanko (official signature stamps) and our alien registration card proof-of-application papers, we thought we were all set. So we walked into a phone shop in Akita and started the process with a very nice woman who knew about 10 words of English. Pick out the phones, easy. Choose the plan, not quite so easy, but simple enough. At this point Steph had leave so as not to be late for meeting our friends at Starbucks as we had earlier agreed. Figuring it would only take another 20 minutes or something for the phone stuff, I would come over when I was done. Little did I know. Filling out the forms went quickly enough (Japan is apparently known for its labyrinthine forms), and then the clerk told me it would take “about 14 minutes” for some process to complete, and then I would be on my way. About half an hour later, she called me over and apologetically told me that without my Alien Registration Card (ID that every long-stay foreigner in Japan has to get) we couldn’t get some specific part of the plan we had wanted. This started a long back-and-forth process about what changes we want to make, etc, etc, etc. Great, everything is okay now, please wait another few minutes. Here, please talk to this English-speaking representative on the phone.

To make a very long story shorter, each time I thought I was done, there was one more thing that couldn’t be done without the Alien Registration Card. I talked to the English speaker on the phone about four more times (she asked pretty much the same questions every time). In the end we weren’t able to get phones at all without the card. The entire process took (wait for it) THREE AND A HALF HOURS. Surely this national mobile phone company has had to deal with this situation before and could have told me right up front that my attempt was futile. Fortunately Steph and the other folks gave up waiting for me at Starbucks and came back to the shop after I didn’t show up for an hour and a half. At least we got two Disney table clocks out of the deal, which the phone shop gave to us for our trouble.

(Steph returns.) The cell phone ordeal wasn’t all bad, since we had all afternoon to kill anyway waiting until the evening festival. We grabbed a seat for the evening parade. The premise of this festival is that men go by with like 50 lit paper lanterns stung up on a huge bamboo pole balanced on various parts of their bodies. Cool, right? Also part of the parade are tons of drummers who go by on little mini floats… almost all of which were female. Rock on!

We ditched out of the parade pretty quickly… after 20 minutes, we felt the law of diminishing returns kick in. So we retreated a bit to the tasty food area, where we scored some okonomiyaki (this crazy everything and the kitchen sink noodle dish) and some kind of fried shrimp/green vegetable balls, both of which were pretty tasty. From this venue, we could easily see the lantern matrices ebb and flow up and down the street. What really surprised me was the abundance of hot dogs. I can’t believe how many hot dogs I’ve seen since I’ve been in Japan. The best manifestation I saw was a dog wrapped in a wonton like wrapper and then deep fried. How hard core! Lots of the street food is deep fried, and I’m trying to use moderation, so, I promise, I’ll try the deep fried dog next time.

Tomorrow is Noshiro’s day to shine, festival wise. May my town revel in it’s fantastic float pulling glory.

(We’ll be posting pictures on Flickr when our internet access situation gets settled.)

Wednesday was kind of a freaky day, as I prepared to say goodbye to my little Tokyo safety bubble. The stark reality of JET started sinking in, as we started splitting off into smaller and smaller travel groups.

At least I got to spend a little quality time meeting my fellow Akitans… the night before, the new JETs from our prefecture went out for a night of kareoke/all-you-can-drink madness. But I thought it was much more fun to fall asleep at 9:30, so I was meeting everyone for the first time today. We went to a little regional airport instead of Narita, and had like 4 hours to kill until our puddle jumper took off.

There’s plenty to peruse at the airport, because there’s this huge souvenir (omiyage) industry here. Whenever you go on a trip, you are required by Japanese etiquette to bring back stuff for your family, people you work with, etc. Ideally the omiyage will be a specialty of whatever region you have just visited.

Also, on the top floor of the airport, was an open rooftop spot for congregating, where you could watch the planes take off. This spot was right next to an “American Diner”, which tickled me pinkish.

I’ve been lugging my cane from Ghana around with me (just in case I need it here later… also good for educating about Ghana :) ). I was very impressed… I took it through airport security, and they had to x-ray it. Imagine my surprise when I was offered a replacement cane to cross the x-ray threshold! How terribly thoughtful! Maybe they do that in the states too, I don’t know… cane users out there, let me know.

The other surprise was onboard our flight. When the flight attendant came through the cabin, I was offered orange juice, green tea, coffee, or *beef bouillon* as a refreshing drink. Awesome. I am told by my seat-mate that it was surprisingly refreshing.

Once we landed, I was met by two Japanese men from my district, who drove me the 40 min. or so back to Noshiro. Chris was a big surprise for them… apparently they had planed a welcome dinner at a hotel, where they had booked me a room for the night, while Chris meanwhile had successfully taken the bullet train (Shinkansen) to Noshiro and was waiting for me at our new house with my predecessor Nate. My hosts had to scramble a bit, but recovered beautifully. Chris joined us for the welcome feast, and they got us a hotel room for two.

The hotel, i have to say, was pretty ghetto, Motel 6 style. Perhaps they were trying to make us feel at ease by booking us in a Western style hotel, but all I felt was depressed. If I fly halfway around the world to be booked in a ghetto hotel, at least make it Japanese-style, yo! At least we were provided yukatas, the cotton lightweight answer to kimonos. See video: Noshiro Dance

The next morning, we partook in the complimentary hotel breakfast, where we found, lo and behold, the infamous natto. This is the dish that all westerners are required by law to try when they come to Japan. Natto consists of fermented soybeans, which appeared in this case, to have a fine film of rubber cement on them. This stuff is gooey and sticky like you wouldn’t believe, which makes for difficult eating in polite company. We both decided to have a small bite of natto in the safe confines of the hotel eatery, where we would offend no one with our reactions. Chris was a more enthusiastic experimenter than I; I simply put two beans in my mouth and washed them down as quickly as possible with coffee. But the end result was the same for us both: dame (no good, forbidden). Now we could, in good conscience, refuse natto for the rest of our sojourn here.

The rest of the day we spent running efficient errands. We were accompanied by Sakura-san (english speaking female) and Sato-san (non-english speaking male). First we picked up some passport photos in an automatic vending machine (awesome), then stopped by city hall to file for our alien registration card. Also visited were the water department, the gas department, and the electric department. We also stopped to get our personal seals made for signing official documents (called a hanko). I guess most Westerners will approximate the sound of their name with kanji, and get these for their stamp. Chris loosely translates to “meringue learner”… so he broke with tradition and just picked the kanji for “learning person”. I ripped off my AIM screen name of nomadicsiren, and got the kanji for “traveller” and “singer”.

And then the landlady. Here are the stats, I kid you not. She lives 3 doors down amidst a little hooverville made of blue corrugated tin, is missing her front teeth, has a mentally challenged son who handles the money, and has 2 blind cats that ooze stuff from various body parts. Totally disgusting and creepy. For some reason, cats here don’t seem very happy or healthy…. not sure why, as I have yet to see any free roaming animal other than crows… anyhow, I hope the landlady doesn’t play too large a role in our time here. On the way out of her place, Sakura-san leans over and says, “Yeah… watch out for her.”

Then we returned to the office to do… nothing for 2 hours. Well, everyone else worked but I didn’t have anything else to do (hence this blog).

I have to admit, I wasn’t really looking forward to Tokyo. Its size and general craziness level scared me a bit, not to mention its gargantuan subway system with multiple overlapping train companies and signage in 漢字. The first thing I had to do on landing (right at midnight by my body’s clock) was get to my host’s apartment in downtown Tokyo on the train during rush hour.

But Tokyo has surprised me. Within hours of arriving I already loved it. Perhaps this is because our host (fellow Mudder Andrew Hughes, who is now a lawyer at the Tokyo office of a New York firm) lives in the “embassy district” of Roppongi, a rather upscale part of town.

Many of the common perceptions of Tokyo and Japan I have already found to be true, but it’s surprised me in some ways too:

• Everything is illuminated and/or automated. Sleek, silent sliding doors grace the entrances of almost every building. Escalators stop when no one is on them and rumble to life again as you approach. Even the luggage delivery ramp at the Narita baggage claim would pause when it sensed there was luggage in the way on carousel. Small signs above subway doors illuminate to indicate which set of doors is going to open at the next stop. The list goes on.
• Spotless society. There is almost no litter anywhere. The sidewalks and subways are both impeccably clean. Part of the reason for this is that it’s considered rude to eat or drink while walking, a fact I remembered this morning as I sipped my coffee. An annoying side-effect of this is that it’s really difficult to find a trash can anywhere. However a pleasant result is Tokyo actually smells nice, something I haven’t generally experienced in large cities.
• Obsequious service. Shopkeepers, waiters, and barristas do an excellent job of making it seem like you are the most important person in the world. I will definitely miss this when I return home.
• Restaurant impugnity. I’m sure there is bad food in Tokyo, but I haven’t found it yet. Just about any establishment you stumble into will serve you delicious and mostly healthy food. Case in point: I was aiming for a tonkatsu place yesterday but walked in the wrong entrance to the building. I ended up in a small one-room establishment run by a bunch of old ladies who spoke no English. I couldn’t read the menu, so I just pointed to the plate of the guy next to me. I ended up with a slab of fish with rice and soup, and the best sesame-garlic noodles I’ve ever tasted. I have never loved fish, but I thouroughly enjoyed this meal and so I am much relieved and looking forward to the Japanese diet more than I thought I would.

We have one remaining day in Tokyo; on Wednesday we travel to Noshiro and will see our house for the first time. I can’t wait!