Day Trippin'

There's nothing like a visit from a spontaneous friend to inspire adventure. Our original plan to visit the northern coast was foiled by infrequent buses so decided to head south instead. We hopped a train and a bus for our day trip to Awaji Island, just south of Kobe.

After disregarding the map, finding a dead end, and relaying on signposts, we made it to our first objective, the Water Temple. Honpukuji was a small Shingon temple built in the most untraditional way I have ever seen. Walking up the stone path, we were confronted with a modern cement wall. We climbed up to the top and were met with a round pond that would be filled with lotus in the summer, but was empty now. In the middle of the pond was a long staircase down - the temple was under the pond! Built in a round shape with undecorated cement and bright red wooden interior, this temple was a wonderful combination of modern architecture and traditional decoration. We were surprised that we were the only visitors to such an interesting temple.

We wandered down to the coast for lunch at a little restaurant, where we learned from the owner that Awaji Island is famous for its onions. Apparently, they are especially sweet. In order to demonstrate this, she gave each of us a package of dried sweet onions as a gift.

After lunch we went over to the beach, where I collected some random sea shells, and then we decided to go try to find what we called "The Tall Man." We had seen the picture in a brochure of a 100 meter tall statue of a man at the Awaji Peace Park. We didn't think it would be too far to walk, so we started out. 45 minutes and 3.5 miles later, 15 minutes after it had closed, we got to the Tall Man. He was actually a statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. We took pictures of him, the small Statue of Liberty to the side (why it was there, I have no idea), and the sunset off the coast. Then there was the problem of getting back. We tried to hitchhike, but that didn't work, so we found a bus and made our way back to the bridge to cross back to the mainland.

The Pearl Bridge is really an amazing bridge. I don't know how long it is, but it's pretty long. The best thing about it, though, is that they light it up at night in all sorts of colors. And the colors change! The best view is when it is rainbow colored, but this only happens for 5 minutes every hour. We waited through the blues and greens, and the reds and purples for the 5 minutes of beautiful lights. It was truly spectacular!

On our way home, we stopped in Kobe for some wonderful Sri Lankan food, and then headed home for a great sleep. It was a wonderful way to spend a vacation day. I was worried I was going to be studying or reading or sitting around doing nothing this winter break, but thanks to vacation friends, it looks like I'm gonna be quite busy!

Speed check

I realized today that when I'm in Japan I'm in a completely different time zone. No, I'm not talking about my physical relation to the International Date Line. It seems that no matter how busy I am, I never have a problem with traveling time. In Boston, a 30 min train ride was horrible, and a 45 min car ride was ridiculous. But an hour walk was no problem. Everyday here I ride the train for at least two hours. Tonight I went down to Kobe for dinner, and thought nothing of the two hour trip, one way. I was just thinking that I could be in Indy from Fort Wayne in that time, but the drive always seems much longer. I guess I don't mind the train ride because I can send emails on my phone, read a book, or sleep. Or like tonight, all of the above!

Merii Kurisumasu

Merry Christmas!

I just saw the massive amounts of snow in Ohio on Japanese TV. Lucky people! It is probably about 36 degrees Farenheight here, with no hope of snow. In fact, just looking out my window, it looks like fall or spring: a clear blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds here and there, and the sun making a nice warm spot on my carpet. Of course, this is all spoiled by the fact that my fingers are freezing as I am typing this.

Oh, it is already noon, and I have Christmas cards to write (Yes, yes, you will all get very very late Christmas cards. Think of them as being especially special since I will actually write them on Christmas!) And tonight I'm going to a sukiyaki party, so I must get going.

Again, Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and loved ones!

Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas Eve Day!
Christmas is a completely secular holiday in Japan. This makes sense, of course, when you realize that less than 1% of the population is Christian. Hence, there are no nativity scenes, and Christmas Eve is not spent at church or with your family, but with your boyfriend or girlfriend, or lacking one of those, with your friends.

This year I spent Christmas Eve Day in a particularly religious fashion. Not all the same religion, but... After having lunch with a friend, we went to see an art exhibit at a wonderful little temple, Honen-in, just off of the Philosopher's Path. The artist had made light exhibits from plants, such as leaves, roses, and these orange things whose name I do not know. Next we went down to Rokuharamistu-ji, a Shingon temple in southern Kyoto so I could do a little research. The temple was holding open services of the nenbutsu odori, a dance and chant first performed by the monk Kuya in the Heian Period to ward off diseases and plagues. We listened to the explanation, watched the dance, and recieved a fuda, a piece of paper blessed to protect you against illness.

Afterwards, on my way to the Christmas Eve service, a Japanese woman stopped her car on the side of the road and came running after me. "I'm looking for English speakers to give them this." She hands me two magazines. "Please read them." And then she walked away. They were Jehovah's Witness magazines.

I went to the Christmas Eve service at Japan Evangelical Lutheran Kyoto Church. I've gone to this church a few times, but it's not very welcoming. After the service I stood eating some cookies and no one, not even the pastor, said anything to me. The service was okay, though. They had some people playing Bach on the violin and piano, which was a nice contrast to the Christmas carols in Japanese. You know how some languages are just so nice to sing church music in? Japanese is not one of them. It always sounds so broken up and forced. This is really odd, since their popular music fits the language so well. And you would think music would fit well with a syllabic language.

Anyway, I came home and made strawberry shortcake, and watched a movie, and had a nice relaxing Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Wasuremono

I'm usually pretty good at remembering things like my keys and wallet, but today I somehow slipped up. I usually use train passes to go everywhere so I hardly ever pull out money. I was coming home from koto lessons, sitting on the train when I realized I only had 90 yen left on my card for a 200 yen ride. So I go to get my wallet out to pay the difference, and it's not there. It's probably on my coffee table. Luckily the nice station man let me leave, only after I had written down my name and address and promised to bring him 110 yen tomorrow. Which I will. I'm just grateful that I'm not stuck in the train station for the rest of my time in Japan.

Elmo Revisited

Remember the days when parents lined up for hours and sold their souls to buy their kids Tickle Me Elmo? Well, although I haven't seen the giggling version, it seems that everywhere I go there are masses of junior high school girls with furry red monsters hanging from their necks. This Elmo's head opens up to store all the things teenage girls want to carry. Too bad he clashes terribly with their pink Hello Kitty tote bags.

O-Tsukare-Sama

I am incrediblely tired. Friday, Saturday, Sunday : three days, three parties. Each compleletely different, but all equally tiring.

Friday, Decemeber 17, 9pm~
What: combo birthday party for Wei ting, Dan, Matt, and some other person I don't know
Where: middle of nowhere Osaka, near Osaka Gaidai
Theme: Tapas Trafficking
Dress: green for "available," yellow for "taken, but tempted," red for "unavailable"
Entertainment: "The Art of the Pick-Up" A documentary posing as a mockumentary. Alas, the guy who made it did not realize how ridiculous his theories were.
Participants: Gaidai students from around the world (New Zealand, Belgium, Singapore, Phillipines, US, and Japan), Japanese neighbors, and visitors from California
Travel time to party: 2.5 hours
Comments: Good cake, funny New Zealanders. No Japanese practice, no way to get home. Happy Birthday Wei ting and Dan! Thanks for letting me sleep on the couch!
Total hours of sleep: 4

Saturday, December 18, 8pm~
When: After a long wonderful day of frisbee practice, where we played co-ed and if girls scored, the team got 2 points. Consequently, my team's strategy was overwhelmingly to huck it to me in the endzone. I love running deep, skying guys, and scoring.
What: Frisbee Christmas party
Where: Some random party place
Food: Nabe and Chinese - the wierdest combination ever
Most commonly discussed topic: who's dating/has a crush on who (this team is so odd; at practice the men and women will not speak to eachother at all. but amazingly, there are at least seven couples on the team! how does this happen?)
Entertainment: Christmas bingo. I didn't win anything. Although someone got a space heater.
Randomness: Some guy dressed as a cat came around and pretended to steal our stuff. No idea...
Second party: After the first party, there is always a second party for those desiring to miss their trains and spend the night at karaoke. After six hours of singing, talking, more gossiping, and people falling asleep at the table, I took the first train home.
Second party highlights: a conversation in which he spoke Japanese, and I answered in English, so he could practice his listening skills; lots of Queen; being awake for the sunrise.
Total hours of sleep: 0

Sunday, December 18, 6pm-11pm
* Don't worry, I went home and overslept my English lesson at 10:30a, and then slept until 4pm. I felt like I was back on my 3rd shift forklifting job!
What: Christmas party with the Morimoto's
Food: Tacos, pizza, and curry; three of my very favorite foods, how did they know? And homemade cake for dessert.
Who: I met the Morimoto's last time I was hear through a friend. They invited a Sri Lankan family, an Australian guy and his girlfriend, and their neighbors. The Sri Lankan guy has lived in Japan for ten years and his Japanese was perfect. I was envious.
Entertainment: Magic games, Christmas songs, and a present exchange. I got a little shelf thing, which is perfect for my desk, and a tiny silver Christmas tree.
Future plans: Morito (the dad) wants to bike around Lake Biwa sometime this spring. It is something like 250 kilometers or more, and he plans to do it in one day. I told him I'd come along. Lake Biwa is supposed to have some beautiful scenery along its coasts.
Total hours of sleep: the normal 7, thank goodness.

Summary: My Japanese is probably pretty good right now, since I pretty much only spoke Japanese for two days. This is great. I usually say that my Japanese improves when I drink some alchohol, which is true. However, it gets worse when I get tired. It's interesting when I mix the two; I found out that my grammer improves, but I have a hard time pulling out vocabulary. Anyway, I got a chance to talk to some more frisbee people, something I don't always get a chance to do at practice, and I met some other random foreigners, which is nice. All in all, a good, but very very tiring weekend. Now, I just look forward to Christmas!

Cellular Nation

My professor checked his keitai (cell phone) today during class. Someone was reading the text out loud, and I hear this click! that signifies a phone being opened. I look around, and there's the sensei, reading his email. I guess he has the right, being the teacher, to do whatever he wants, but I was still surprised. Because there are so many keitai in this country, there are problems with people using them rudely, as in the US. This is especially prevelent with students who will spend the entire class emailing their friends.

The cell phone is really an amazing thing. I can't imagine how it was that we lived without them. I was watching some early 80's American movie on TV the other day. This guy was kidnapped and taken to an island, and no one could find him. And I found myself thinking, why doesn't he just call them on his cell phone? But they really are a crutch, too. For instance, the news is doing all these stories about what would happen if another really big earthquake hits. The cell phones wouldn't work because everyone would be trying to use them, but because everyone has cell phones there are less public phones, so no one would be able to get in touch with anyone. The "how to be prepared for an earthquake" guy says that you should have 10yen coins ready to use the pay phones, but I can't think of a single phone within 3 blocks of my building.

I love my cell phone. It is not particularly fancy, that is, it only has a camera and internet. It doesn't have a TV, play mp3s, or a video phone feature. In an interesting marketing strategy, Tu-ka has just started offering what you would imagine to be the opposite of what is in demand. Instead of a more advanced phone with more gadgets and features, they have introduced the "simple phone." Nothing but a phone. The keypad has no extra buttons and there is no screen. The website even has a lovely diagram equating use of a regular phone to use of the cell phone. The phone is targeted at the elderly, or more likely, at their children who will give them the phones. It's amazing how technology has to go backwards sometimes.

Forget-the-year Parties

The holiday season is officially upon me. Starting last Friday in a span of ten days, I will have attended no less than six Christmas/End of Year parties. I've already dealt with two.

The first was a Christmas party thrown by Dave and Katie. We all invited Japanese friends so that they too could experience the joys of eggnog, christmas cookies, christmas songs, and reindeer antlers. Amazingly, we managed to fit about sixteen people into Dave's small apartment. I think someone took a picture of the mountain of shoes in the genkan (entryway). It was a nice opportunity to talk to a few of the frisbee team members away from practice, and meet lots of students from other universities. Katie made excellent appetizers, Dave's eggnog was delicious, and every single one of the guests brought some sort of dessert-like food with them. It was such a good party that we didn't even have to resort to playing Kings.

The second party was the Mukaijima Gakusei Center's Christmas/Year End BIG PARTY, as they called it. I helped out all week with decorations and preparations. Some people cooked foods from their countries, and the boss of the building offered free whiskey. I was also roped into doing the unthinkable; I performed. I made the mistake of telling my koto teacher that people could volunteer to do some sort of performance at the party, and all of a sudden, I was signed up. So my teacher and I played a nice duet, some people listened and others didn't, but I got through with only making one decently large mistake, that of course, no one heard. The other performers were: an Indian dance, a Peruvian dance, some Latin American music, some popular guitar music, and a Korean song. After the performances we played Bingo, and both Katie and Dave won a huge box of instant ramen. The dance party followed. Fortunately, it wasn't as popular as the Halloween party, so I managed to get to bed by 2am. Whew. As we say in Japanese "Tsukareta" I'm tired.

Sugar Coma

I like to bake. That is, I like baked goods. So when my room came equipped with an ovenless microwave, I was disappointed. Last week I finally asked if I could exchange it for better one, and they did. Today I put it to the test. I baked about five dozen christmas cookies. The oven worked wonderfully. I just had two other problems. Firstly, there was a lack of cookie cutters. Consequently, the christmas trees are lopsided, the snowmen look like their heads are gonna fall off, and we'll see if anyone can recognize the bells. The second problem was the frosting. I ran out of powdered sugar so I had to go get more. The kanji was odd, so I took the package with me and matched the words. I got home, opened it up and realized it was closer to granulated sugar. Why are two different sugars called exactly the same thing in Japanese? I don't know, and my cookies have no frosting because of it. They taste good anyway. I can say with confidence that they have plenty of sugar, and my hea
dache and tummy ache will concur. You would think after years of eating excessive amounts of conkie dough I would build up a tolerance.

Cultural Exchange

Japan is going through a Korea phase. Korean television shows and movies are rated number one and travel to Korea has increased. The driving factor behind this trend is one man, an actor called affectionately "Yon-sama" in Japanese. He's not exceptionally handsome, but he has hypnotized thousands of housewives. Yes, this 20 something, glasses wearing star is most popular among middle-aged married women with families. When he came to Japan they swarmed him, took desperate pictures, and cried with happiness. The news could find no other event to compare since the Beatles visit. In China and Korea Japan's infatuation with him is on the news. Have you heard about it over there?

Happy Christmas

After months of searching, I have finally decided on my favorite Japanese television drama for the season. It's called "Last Christmas," and you can guess what the theme song is. The story is really not all that great, nor is the main actor amazingly attractive, but it's the best I could find. It's about a man and a woman who live next door to each other and work at the same company. They fall in love, of course, and on yesterday's show, she found out she has a fatal disease. Oh what will happen next?! Yes, yes, very predictable, but really, Japanese TV isn't good enough for me to find much else to be excited about watching. The really big downfall of watching this show is that the theme song gets stuck in my head for incredibly long periods of time. It doesn't help that the supermaket, the department store, and the convience store are all playing it whenever I go in. And of course, it being in English means it rattles around in my brain even longer than a Japanese song would.

Speaking of Christmas, it's all over here. I noticed, though, that nothing is ever "Merry Christmas." It is all "Happy Christmas." I think it's because the word "happy" has made it into the average Japanese person's vocabulary, but "merry" has not. I was thinking of buying a small Christmas tree. I can get a fake little two foot tall one for about ten dollars. Is it worth it? Maybe I'll just buy a couple strings of Christmas lights and decorate my room. I'll have to think about it.

Am I proficient?

I just spent the morning taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 2. I went into it with no worries and no expectations. This is for two reasons: 60 percent is passing, and I didn't study. At all. I signed up for this test in September when I thought I would devote my first three months in Japan exclusively to Japanese. Well, the only studying I've done since then is watching TV. But I have to say that I'm confident I aced the listening portion. So at least my passive studying worked. As for the other parts..let's just say I started seeing pictures in the answer sheet dots. I'm hoping for a 65 percent. This will sadly prove my lack of study while still leaving me with some confidence in my Japanese ability.

"Hair and Make"

In Japanese, the word for hospital is only an elongated "o" different than the word for beauty shop. Today I went to the latter.
I had always heard that going to get your hair cut in Japan was an "experience." I guess this is true, especially with my hair. After relinquishing my coat, I was led to the shampoo room where my hair was washed and my scalp treated to a massage. I was then unwrapped from my protective layers and taken to my chair. It took her 10 minutes to comb my hair, 7 to trim it, and 35 to blow it dry. Ha. I don't think she knew what to do with all my hair. Luckily, she didn't layer it or give me the ever fashionable mullet. And when we were done she saw me all the way to the elevator door. Ah, the Japanese service industry! There really is something to be said for treating all your customers like celebraties.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

I'm getting ready for bed and my friend emails me, did you feel the earthquake? And I reply, no, was there one? Two minutes later as I am brushing my teeth my bathroom starts to shake and my dishes rattle. The TV says it was a level 3, whatever that means. Don't worry, "there is no danger to buildings" they say. Exciting!