Okazaki – The Stupid American Tourist

Sayonara, Yamasa, Sayonara, Okazaki. Tadaima, Tokyo.

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Dec 162011

Today was a whirlwind of emotions. I started out with about 3 hours’ sleep, getting up at 5:30 in the morning so I could finish packing up 2 boxes to send home. I grabbed a shower, then ran the washing machine so it would finish before I had to leave, then stripped the bed, packed the bedding into Space Bags, and stuffed all of that into a box.

By then it was 6:30. More packing, more preparations, more running around. By 8:15, the washer finished, so I hung everything up to dry, pointed the heater at the laundry, and got ready to head out the door for the last time for class. (Note: there will be a lot of “last times” in this article.)

Heading out the door for class, one last look at the apartment area:

A shot of the 248 intersection on the way to class:

When I got to class at around 8:55, I was the only person there. It was kind of sad, because usually it’s pretty lively at that time.

By 9:00, it was just me, M-sensei, and K-san. That was pretty much it for the start of class. People started to trickle in, but nobody was really in the mood to race to class today, probably because exams were over, and today was just a day to goof around before the end of the semester ceremony and all of the goodbyes.

We watched a video where a guy with a camera stalks a girl who stalks a pizza delivery guy who stalks another girl who winds up murdering the camera guy because he was stalking the first girl instead of her, so she became jealous. It was actually pretty well done. The actress who played the girl who stalks the pizza guy was very good. Her clumsiness came through really well, and she just flat out made me laugh with her physical comedy.

Anyway.

By the end of the video, we had seven people out of eleven. Not bad. Then we moved on to making å¹´è³€çŠ¶ (ãã‚“ãŒã˜ã‚‡ã†) nengajou, or end of the year post cards everyone sends out to each other to thank them for everything they did last year, and hope that they treat them well again next year. So we made one each.

Usually, you pick a theme based on next year’s Chinese zodiac sign. Next year is the year of the dragon, so dragons in general are pretty big these days. Mine wasn’t the most complex, to be honest. I wish I had thought to bring my brush pen. Doh.

We got our grade reports. I did okay. I got a B overall. I’m pleased, considering all the work I had to put in. (And all of the traveling I did on the side!)

Class Dismissed!

Then it was time for the end of term ceremony, which was held in Aoi Hall, where I usually ate lunch when I would just grab something at Domy. It was the home to my favorite vending machine. It was the kind that would squirt your selected drink, be it hot or cold, into a paper cup. I’ve always had a soft spot for those machines.

Anyway, on to the ceremony. The deal is that a student who is leaving gets a certificate showing all of his/her hard work, and then that student has to give a speech to the assembled crowd.

Yes, a speech. I found out about this on Wednesday. Some people prepared theirs, I didn’t. Why? Simple. I had no time!

So we started with the 101 class, and slowly worked our way to 201B.

Thank You!

Then it was my turn. Fortunately, V-san recorded it for me, because now I don’t have a very good recollection of what the heck it was that I said. I do remember thanking the staff, my teachers, S-Sensei and K-Sensei. I also thanked all of the JBPP people as well.

I wanted to thank everyone who helped to make me so much better at Japanese than I was when I showed up here with my language skills in total disarray. My skills are still a bit of a mess, but now I can hold down a conversation without fear, and that’s a huge deal for me. I have a feeling that I know where to start.

Thanks to Yamasa and the people that make it a great school. You are all incredible people who do something wonderful for us who come from thousands of miles away to ask you stupid questions, and you answer them patiently and graciously.

As I stared out at all of the people I had gotten to know over such a long, yet short period of time, it all felt a little bit surreal, and my mind kind of wandered. I looked over and saw Z-san, and the first thing that I thought about was all of the fun we had in JBPP, and the class we just had on talking about nothing. So I talked about it briefly. That class was a lot of fun in particular. The JBPP gang was great. I’m going to miss them.

I don’t remember how exactly I wrapped it up, but I’m sure I used proper keigo. Lord, they’ve been trying to drill it into my head for the last three months, so I hope it has stuck a bit by now.

Then we all got together for a few group shots, and talked a bit.

The After-Party

By then, the rest of the class had decided to show up, and we all headed in the general direction of Olive Tree, which is an all-you-can-stand-to-eat Italian restaurant at the corner of highways 248 and 483.

The deal there is simple– you put a little sign on your table, and a lady brings you a slice of pizza until you can’t stand it, then you turn the sign around. You can also get a spaghetti dish, salad, drink and dessert. So we did.

Unfortunately for P-san, most of the pizzas were tuna, tuna and corn, and other seafood varieties. (She hates seafood.) Then again, I’m not fond of it on my pizza either, but I was starving, so I ate it anyway.

Corn Pizza with Tuna:

So we ate, and ate, and ate, and generally horsed around until about 2:30, then the farewells started. Ugh. That round was harsh.

Everyone was getting all misty-eyed.

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, because I don’t know if/when I’ll see them again. Hopefully we can get together online. That would be awesome.

Leaving Yamasa, Leaving Okazaki.

I had to go to Kurita for one last bundle of tape, so I did that, then decided to stop by campus to say goodbye. I dropped in and said goodbye to the CS staff and the teachers, M-sensei in particular, who was so very patient with me. I took some photos of the Yamasa campus.

Yamasa II, where we had class, and where all of the offices are:

Aoi Hall and the building on the left, where I had JBPP classes:

Another shot of Aoi Hall. FM Okazaki in the front:

It’s not a pretty building on the outside, but it’s nice inside:

Kitsutsuki, the cafe/restaurant where I had a lot of lunches. Get the A set. Can’t go wrong!

ZigZag, a warm, friendly little bar with the cheapest Guinness Stout in Japan:

Then I made the lonely walk back to the apartment to finish packing and get out.

One last look at Yamasa II as I head back to the apartment:

On the way back:

The rice field I saw every day:

I loved the way this shed looked:

The snapping turtle restaurant I mentioned before. I never did eat there:

The Daiso: land of 100 yen cheap things:

Heading back to my apartment:

I had to climb this hill every day by bicycle. It was never that much fun:

Almost there:

And the apartments are just up ahead on the left:

Frantically Fleeing

I got the last packages ready at around 6 pm, then called a cab to come take me to the post office. That’s five packages going by boat to home, total. Yikes.

When I got back, I made a quick video of the apartment before I left, then I called another cab to take me to the station.

This time, I got my tickets to Tokyo at the JR Okazaki station office. I did it all in Japanese, and it saved me a bunch of time.

I went to the platform with my insanely heavy luggage, and had a brainfart. I saw a train getting ready to leave and instinctively jumped on it. It looked a little different than the usual limited express, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I was flustered and full of emotions from the day, and that doesn’t always lead to good outcomes.

The train lumbered out of the station, and the next station was a station I’ve never gone to before.

Uh-oh, it seems that I had gotten on the local.

Arrrgh!

I rode it a few stops to Anjo, and grabbed the usual limited express to Nagoya. I had to hurry, because I didn’t want to miss my shinkansen to Tokyo! It was going to leave soon, and I was stressing a bit.

Back in Tokyo.

I got to Nagoya safely, and didn’t really have time to do much more than get to the Shinkansen platform and buy a bento for the ride to Tokyo.

I got on the train, and there wasn’t any good place to put my luggage. Fortunately, I was in the front row by myself, so I sat there with my luggage the whole way to Tokyo.

FYI, sitting with your giant suitcases is not fun. Please, pack light!

I was moving, so packing light wasn’t really an option for me.

I got to JR Shinagawa at around 10:30 or so, and I knew I needed to hustle to get to Shinjuku before the trains stopped running. So I lugged all of my heavy crap with me through the station to the Yamanote Line platform. It was Friday night, and it was packed.

That was an unpleasant ride where I got some unhappy looks. I know that backpacks are generally frowned upon on the trains here, but I didn’t have much of a choice. So I beared with it.

I got to Shinjuku, and made it to my usual hotel, the Hotel Sunroute Shinjuku. I love this hotel. They have saved my bacon a few times.

I stopped by a conbini for dinner, then passed out.

Fushigi na Tokoro

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Dec 152011

We got our results back from our tests. I passed the grammar/writing test. It was a little tight on the listening test, but I figured it would be tight.

Today was the last JBPP class. We had the Okazaki version of donuts. I forget what they’re called now, but they were good. S-Sensei brought us all kinds of donuts, and beverages as well.

It was a little sad to see everyone for the last time. I had a blast in JBPP, and learned a ton. And I realize there’s a ton more I need to learn still! Good luck to my fellow students, N-san, Z-san, and K-san! Thank you for your patience and understanding!

I made another trip to Kurita for more packing materials, and the Daiso for some more.

I got home, and there was lots of frantic throwing things in boxes, mummifying said boxes in clear tape, and a trip to the Okazaki Main Post Office to send two of them back to the US by boat.

I took a taxi. There was no other sane way to get there!

They laughed when I told them I’d be back tomorrow, but I’m serious. I will be.

Kitto Katta!

After that, I went to ZigZag for the Christmas Party. They don’t call it a Holiday Party here, because Christmas means having a hot date in Japan, or some KFC and cake and some pretty lights… no deeper meanings, so nobody takes offense.

Most Japanese, who are raised in Shinto and Buddhism, have no problems with celebrating Christmas. Considering that the Shinto religion has millions of gods, what’s wrong with celebrating one more?

I gave D-san my store of “edible stuff that I can’t take with me, because I shipped it here like an idiot,” and he graciously accepted it. I hope he can use it. I was really glad he took it off my hands, and I feel like a dork for bringing it all.

D-san hosted the Bingo game and everyone won something… like massage oil, Q-tips, salted Pocky, you name it.

I won KitKats, which made me happy. I love winning something useful and delicious. (I was fine with not winning massage oil.)

I hung out with P-san, T-kun, and some of the guys who have been working locally. It was fun. I probably stayed later than I should have, and I’ll probably pay for it in the morning. Such is life.

I wanted to be with a lot of people tonight, and I wanted to see everyone having a good time while I can, because tomorrow it’s time to leave Okazaki, and that’s a bummer.

I had a blast here, and everyone was great.

Fushigi na Tokoro/The Crossroads of Language Learning on the Tokaido

Yamasa is a strange, ephemeral kind of place. All kinds of interesting people come from all over the world to desperately learn Japanese in a very rigorous setting, and they all work crazy hard to do it, and then suddenly– VOOM– they’re gone.

Mission accomplished, or maybe not, but for whatever reason, they’ve done all they can either afford to or are allowed to by their government or the Japanese government through visas, and that’s it.

So everyone works hard, plays hard, and racks up the best memories they can. Students range from fresh-faced 18 and 19-year olds, to 60+ year olds who are looking for new challenges in life.

It’s a fun mix of people, from a wide range of different cultures, but we all have one thing in common.

We can all speak Japanese!

Stupid FOREX People

In my case, my study was limited by the strong yen/weak dollar. Those guys working the Yen FOREX trade essentially did me in, because everything here is just ungodly expensive for me. It makes me cringe just to think about it.

When I came here four years ago, the rate was 110 yen to the dollar. Now, it hovers around 77-78 yen to the dollar, and it has done so the whole time I’ve been here. I know, because I watch the exchange rate like a hawk. As soon as it hits 78, WHAM, it gets pounded down to the low 77s again. That’s how I know that someone, somewhere, is making a killing off of this.

It’s a shame, because it’s hurting businesses here and keeping tourists away.

Overall Results: Success!

We got our å®ŸåŠ› (aptitude/achievement) test results back today, and I’m pleased with the results. There wasn’t a really big change in my grammar/vocabulary abilities, but I wasn’t too concerned about those. What I was pleased with was the big jump in speaking and writing ability. That was the main reason I came here.

Since I was in a N2-level class, we covered a lot of material I already sort of knew, so there wasn’t a whole lot of new vocab to learn, nor was there a whole lot of grammar to learn. BUT there was a lot of learning “shades of meaning” that I didn’t even consider before. So I got to know the grammar I learned a lot better than I used to know it.

And while my passive vocab didn’t increase a whole lot, my active vocabulary shot through the roof. That’s due to all of the talking and writing in Japanese that I did.

All of my excursions were daily å®ŸåŠ› tests to see how I could handle all kinds of things in a 99% Japanese environment. Things like getting tickets, buying food, finding stores, ordering things, dealing with the post office, dealing with all kinds of people on an everyday basis– all of that was a series of daily exams.

I’m very pleased with my results.

Tomorrow is the closing ceremony, party, and then I head out. *Sniff!*

Last Trip to Anjo

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Dec 142011

Today was the last big test day, with the big listening and grammar test that covered, well, everything.

As usual, listening was hard, because it was all JLPT-style listening. Grammar wasn’t so bad, because the teachers have been working hard to get us ready for this. We’ve done all kinds of review drills and games to try to get the grammar firmly seated in our heads.

The day didn’t get off to a good start. I got up at 5:30 to finish up my resume and è·å‹™çµŒæ´æ›¸ (shokumu keirekisho) and send it all to M-sensei, but I forgot to attach the file.

So at lunch, I had to race home and send it, then race back.

Our Conversation Made the Earth Move

We met with local people after lunch to practice our conversational skills. It was a lot of fun. The wild part was when about halfway through, when there was an earthquake that felt like someone had just lifted up the building about 6 inches or so and dropped it with a loud “BAM!” and then it was silent while everyone checked to make sure nobody was hurt.

After everyone confirmed that they were okay, there was a little nervous laughter, and we all went back to talking.

I guess you just get used to this sort of stuff after a while.

All of the local folks were impressed with our conversational skills, and we got to practice our modesty. (Oh, no, I’m not that good at all!)

After that, it was time for JBPP, and time to say goodbye to M-sensei. She taught us a ton of useful stuff. Thanks, M-sensei!

Then I remembered I still had to go to Anjo to buy some æ›¸é“ supplies for one of my friends back home. First I stopped by the office supply store to get some packing materials.

I wasn’t thinking, and I bought too much! See, that’s what happens when my brain is hard-wired to just toss everything in my car like giant shopping cart.

So at JR Okazaki, I lucked out and discovered something I had always overlooked: the coin lockers at JR Okazaki! They exist! All five of them!

To get to the coin lockers, go to the BellMart outside the wicket, and look to your left. They’re right there. One stack of them.

I dropped my bags off there, and headed out to Anjo. As I waited for the Aichi Loop Line to come, I took a few snapshots with my IXY. (I love this little camera!)

The info board (which is a monitor) with real time updates on where each train is:

The light was good, so I took a few shots of the platform:

As a freight train went past, I tried to get a shot of it:

This is probably a better shot:

The æ„›ç’°å‡º sign is marking the Aikan (short for Aichi Loop Line in Japanese) track.

My train showed up, and I took the Aichi Loop Line to Naka-Okazaki, (Okazaki Koen-Mae for the Meitetsu) then switched over to the Meitetsu line that heads towards Anjo. I got off at Shin-Anjo, and hiked over to the calligraphy store, ready to buy a few things before I left, and to say goodbye.

I got to the store… and it was dark.

Uh-oh.

I checked the hours, and they should be open, but the lights were out. So I mustered up a little courage, knocked, opened the door and asked in Japanese if they were still open.

I got lucky, because the lady there remembered me and turned the lights on for me. Woot. See? That’s that whole “knowing the language and interacting with people” skill paying dividends!

I bought more paper and brushes, and got the 30% discount for knowing the people who run the store. They also gave me an extra brush as a freebie. Thanks! You were all great!

I still need ink, I think. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I may buy it in Tokyo instead. I don’t have time now.

We talked a little bit, then I had to go back home and frantically pack some more.

On the way back to the apartment, I stopped at the Daiso and binged on packing materials and cool things like B3-sized clear files, which will be great for carrying calligraphy paper. I found some resume forms, some sakubun paper, some rubber stamps for my sister (she’s getting her teaching certificate, and maybe she can use these). I got some plastic B3-sized paper cases, too. 100 yen stores are awesome. (But why do I not like dollar stores?)

I packed until 2 a.m., and listened to FM Okazaki while I packed. Then I passed out.

Two days to go, then I have to leave.

A Master of Saying Nothing

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Dec 132011

We have our main class (AIJP) final tomorrow, for chapters 5-12. We’ve all been studying like crazy, too! Most of our classes have been review, and I’ve been reviewing whenever I can, including on the train.

Today I was awesome in JBPP.

I have fully mastered the art of saying nothing.

It’s important to know how and when to use filler words. Even in formal situations, there are times when they’re necessary.

I really have come a long way!

But I still have a lot of things to do before I can leave town.

Last Excursion to Nagoya, For a While, Anyway

After class, I went to the post office to pay some bills, get some cash, and then I headed to Nagoya for (probably?) the last time until I leave for Tokyo.

While I was waiting for the train at JR Okazaki, I snapped a couple of photos:

When I got to Nagoya, I stopped by Maruzen, and found some good æ›¸é“ books, then went to the æ›¸é“ supply store in Sakae to get things like stones for carving seals, knives for carving, etc.

While I was in Sakae, I took a few pictures. First, the area near one of the supply stores:

Then I headed to the park, and saw this weird little sign way off in the distance:

Aww, it’s kind of cute!

Okay, maybe creepy-cute?

I also grabbed an obligatory shot of the Nagoya broadcast tower:

And I tried a little too hard to be artsy about it:

For dinner, I made my last trip to Mokumoku. That food is great, especially the beef stew. I’m going to miss it!

Then I went down a few floors to Tokyu Hands to get a few more æ›¸é“ supplies for me, and some souvenirs for family members.

Going Home

By then it was getting on 9 pm, so I grabbed a train back to Okazaki. I wanted to say “home,” because really, by now Okazaki feels like home to me, but in a few days I will be leaving home to go to Tokyo, then back to my other home in the US.

Sigh.

This is all kind of bittersweet for me. I have had an incredible experience here, and a wonderful time, but it’s a little sad, too.

It’s also incredible motivation for me to get back here as soon as I can. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, but I will come back to live here for a while. (More than three months, I can assure you!)

Jackson Pollock and The Tallest Toilet in Nagoya

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Dec 112011

Today I went to Nagoya again. (Again?) Yes, again. There was a Jackson Pollock 100th birthday commemorative exhibition going on at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, so you’re darn right I was going. It was a collection of a lot of his major pieces, even pieces from Iran, which I would never be able to see in the US. So of course I was going.

Jackson Pollock is one of my favorite artists. There’s no way I wasn’t going.

I stopped at the post office on the way out of town, only to have my ATM card declined. Twice. Apparently I hit the limit when I was in Toyohashi, and it’s not US midnight yet. Doh.

I still had plenty of money, but I’m always paranoid about not having enough cash on me here. In a pinch, I can usually use a credit card, but there’s always a chance that my card will be randomly declined. Either it’s security or just incompatible networks, it’s embarrassing and annoying. I wish there was a way to tell them, “Hey, it’s me! Let it go through!” Sadly, not yet.

Also, a lot of stores here will only take cash, so that’s also something to keep in mind.

It’s Not All Paint Splatters!

I got to JR Nagoya around 1, then made my way to Sakae, where the exhibition was.

On the way, a gratuitous shot of Oasis21 with my IXY, which I keep in my pocket now pretty much all the time.

The museum was close by. They had an amazing number of Pollock’s paintings. As I said before, some came from places the US doesn’t have good relations with (like Iran), so I got to see things up close and personal that I probably would never be able to see in the US.

I also got to see a lot of Pollock’s early period work, and his really late work, both of which were surprisingly different from what I’m most familiar with, but were both impressive in different ways.

They even had a mock-up of his studio that you could walk around in, and a photo of his paint-splattered floor you could walk on. It was pretty cool.

They also had paint cans and brushes and other tools he used to create his paintings with.

After a couple of hours of geeking out, I headed to the gift shop and bought some post cards and a clear file. The clear file is awesome. It’s clear, but has a band from one of his paintings on it. Way cool.

Walkin’ In The Sky

I headed back to JR Nagoya, and decided that it was time to check out the Midland Square building, which is pretty darn cool. I had been meaning to go there for a while, but with all of the rain, it was impossible. Why? Because the observation deck is all outside! It’s 47 stories up, and the observation deck is 5 stories high, and all outdoors. According to their website, it’s the tallest outdoor observation deck in Japan.

It’s cool.

Well, it’s also cold, because it’s mid-December.

But I was willing to tough it out. I got some really nice shots, and even shot a little video of the walk around the periphery.

So here are some of the nicer shots of the Nagoya Skyline from my little Canon IXY:

JR Nagoya:

The spiky sculpture in front of JR Nagoya, from 47 stories up. Scarier than it looks!

You can see people boarding a Shinkansen!

Nagoya Castle in the lower left corner:

Looking down from the top:

I really like this angle and this shot in general:

The light in general was strong as the sun was setting, so there was a lot of dramatic lighting:

I felt the call of nature, and headed to the restroom there. That is one fancy and technologically advanced restroom. It’s almost as cool as the one at Oasis in Akihabara. Almost. But pretty close. There’s a hand dryer built into the sink, so as soon as you’re done washing, you can dry your hands without getting other peoples’ restroom cooties on your hands. And unlike a lot of air dryers in the US, it only stops when your hands are dry.

Of course I took a picture. It was cool!

I went back out and took some more photos. I only had my IXY with me, and just as I was getting into it, the battery started to die.

Boo.

I got a few more shots of Nagoya Castle, with more dramatic light as the sun was getting on with setting at a much quicker pace than I expected:

I managed to squeeze out a couple more photos, and then it quit completely.

This shot is one of my favorites:

And after the Christmas tree photo here, the camera called it quits for a while:

Well, I did manage to get this shot of JR Nagoya:

Not bad for a “cheap” little point-and-shoot camera, huh? It’s really not about the gear, it’s where you point it!

Supplies!

Satisfied with my trip to Midland Square, I decided to go look for some office supplies to take back home. I found Shimojima (ã‚·ãƒ¢ã‚¸ãƒž) using Google Maps, and hopped on the Sakura-dori subway line to Marunouchi. I got off there, and started walking. It’s a few blocks away.

Shimojima is 4-5 stories full of office supplies. They had stuff I didn’t even know I needed. So I stocked up!

I bought stuff like A3-sized clear folders, which are 20-page binders with 20 clear plastic pages. I can stick my good calligraphy pieces in there and keep them protected. I learned this from S-buchou.

I also stocked up on Frixion refills. Yeah, they erase in high heat, but for just jotting stuff down, they’re pretty neat pens. And the US version doesn’t take refills.

I also got some erasers, and a couple of cardboard tubes for putting paper, posters, and calendars in for safe transport. (Going back to Tokyo is going to be difficult!)

Then I headed to Sakae and Maruzen, and picked up some calendars. They make great gifts for the folks back home. They’re one-page calendars with traditional Japanese-style prints on them, printed on good quality paper. (And they’re only 1000 yen a piece. Not bad!) It’s a suitably Japanese-enough present, but not tacky. And after a year, they can toss them or whatever.

It’s almost as good as food.

I stopped off at a drug store in the Sakae Underground shopping mall to get some pain relief patches for my increasingly sore muscles. All of this moving around and carrying stuff is making me sore.

Then I headed to Hisayaodori to get some more books.

Then a trip to JR Nagoya, to go to the Tokyo Hands there, to get some Nanoblock puzzles for my neighbor’s kids.

After that, I needed dinner. Badly.

I’ve been at Mokumoku a lot, because it’s a good restaurant, but I needed to try something else. So I went Breizh Cafe Creperie. Crepes are BIG in Japan, but they’re not necessarily cheap. I got a salad, a bacon and tomato crepe, a chocolate crepe (as big as my head), and a ginger ale for 4,000 yen.

Yikes.

But they were some really fine crepes.

I finished up around 9:30 or so, then grabbed a train to Okazaki. I got home around 10:30 or so.

It was a very successful day!

Toyohashi!

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Dec 102011

Today I went to Toyohashi, which is a little north and east of Okazaki.

First, I stopped off at the post office to send package number one back to the US by boat mail. (It was expensive even for that, and it’s going to take two months to get back home.)

I hopped on the train to Toyohashi. It was a little odd, because I’m not used to going in that direction. I usually go the other way, towards Nagoya.

When I got to Toyohashi, I stopped off at the BellMart to pick up some Band-Aids, because I cut myself. Then I headed off to find the calligraphy brush shop before it closed. It was already 3:30, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to mess around trying to find it. Remember, some stores in Japan close really early, and some have a quick trigger to close their doors.

Streetcars!

Toyohashi has one unique feature, and that is its streetcars. I rode one about 4-5 stops to get near the calligraphy supply stores, and found the brush shop I needed. (There are a number of calligraphy-related stores here.)

I met the man who runs the store, and he was really nice. I explained who I was, and that I was a student of S-buchou’s, so he called S-buchou to get the details, and found the brush I wanted. 15,000 yen was the sticker price, but he gave me a significant discount, for which I am grateful.

It’s an excellent brush, and I expect that it will last me 20 years at least. Even someone like me can tell when a brush has high quality, and this brush exudes quality. It feels great in my hand.

I thanked the shop owner, and headed out. It was already 4:30, so if I wanted to look around, I had to hurry before the family-run stores closed for the day. A lot of them will close at 5 or 6.

I wandered around some of the neighborhoods to see if I could find any calligraphy stores open, but struck out. I did see some other interesting shops, though.

I was starting to get hungry, so I decided to grab a streetcar and head back to the train station area. While I was waiting, I got bored and took a few photos with my IXY.

Looking the other way:

Oh, looks like my streetcar is coming!

When I got back the station area, I did a lot of walking around. As it started to get dark, I realized that I had to make up my mind. I couldn’t find a restaurant that really jumped out at me, so I headed back to the station to look around inside.

Before I did that, I took a few pictures:

A panorama of the area around the station:

Looking back up one of the main roads:

I think this is a pachinko parlor? At any rate, the Space Shuttle on top drew my attention:

Before I went in, I saw that their Christmas display was already up, but not on yet, because it wasn’t dark:

What Happens in Mikawa, Stays in Mikawa

Then I found a restaurant inside, called Mikawa, and asked what the local famous dish is. The waiter said I should go with the Curry Udon, so I did.

He brought me a giant paper bib.

At first I thought this was some sort of a “You probably don’t know how to eat this because you’re a foreigner” kind of thing, like when some restaurants will try to give me a fork or knife when I want chopsticks.

But I looked around, and a lot of people were wearing the same giant paper bibs.

When I got my bowl of curry udon, I understood why.

You take udon, put it in a curry soup, and it all sits on a small mound of rice at the bottom of the bowl. It’s delicious, but it’s incredibly messy to eat.

My white paper bib was all shades of orange by the time I was done, but the curry udon was delicious.

On the way out of the mall area, I found a Saint Germain bakery and grabbed some sandwiches and pastries for later.

I took some more photos of the (now lit!) Christmas lights:

Then I grabbed a train back to Okazaki. It was a fun trip to Toyohashi. I wish I had gone there sooner, because there’s probably a lot more to see.

One last photo. When I got back to JR Okazaki, I noticed that they had their own version of Christmas lights! (Well, okay, colored lights.)

Then I grabbed my bike and went home.

Jiko PR, Entry Sheets, Shopping and Shipping.

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Dec 092011

The grammar re-test went well. We got to go up to the 3rd floor and sit in comfy chairs and take it there.

M-sensei, my homeroom teacher, is awesome. She has gone above and beyond for us. She’s also helping me do some personal reviewing of the bits of grammar I still have issues with. Thanks M-sensei! You rock!

In JBPP, we had to work on ourã€€è‡ªå·±PR (jiko PR), which is this uniquely Japanese part of a resume where you’re allowed to sell yourself, but you have to do it in a polite and socially-acceptable way. So you get to brag a little, but it’s usually stuff about how you’re a great team player, how you respect your seniors, and stuff like that.

It’s completely alien to me in that regard. This is probably the hardest part of writing my resume materials for Japan.

Well, I thought it was the hardest part until we started talking about Entry Sheets, which are essentially juiced-up application forms for companies, but you need to not just write stuff out, you have to do it with panache — but with a socially-acceptable level of panache.

I get it, and I don’t get it all at the same time. It makes my head hurt a bit.

Imagine Me, Buying More Books!

This evening, I went by Imagine at Wingtown around dinner time to grab some æ›¸é“ (shodo, calligraphy) books, and maybe some ãƒ‡ã‚¶ã‚¤ãƒ³æ›¸é“ (design shodo) books, too. Maybe sometime I can leverage my æ›¸é“ skills to write a killer Entry Sheet.

I’m boxing up packages for the US as well. It’s kind of a sad feeling. By this time next week, I’ll be on my way to Tokyo, and a week after that, I’ll be back in the US.

Now I’m getting bummed out.

Re-testing and Re-testing.

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Dec 082011

I had the writing re-test due today. That meant that I just had to make the corrections and hand it in. Now that’s done.

In JBPP, I had to work on my è·å‹™çµŒæ´æ›¸ã€€ã—ã‚‡ãã‚€ã‘ã„ã‚Œãã—ã‚‡ã€€shokumu keirekisho, which is where you explain what you did at your various jobs. Sort of like a US-style resume, only with more detail, and less selling. It’s kind of a pain to write one, but necessary.

Tomorrow is my grammar re-test, so I’m going to cut this short to study!

The Aptitude Test Redux

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Dec 072011

Today we had the å®ŸåŠ›ã€€ã˜ã¤ã‚Šã‚‡ãã€€jitsuryoku or aptitude test. It was the same test I took when I first got here. It’s a good chance to see how far I’ve really come since I got here. As always, though, it’s long, and makes my brain hurt.

In JBPP, we took more phone messages.

After that, I met up with S-buchou to talk about calligraphy over tea. It was a lot of fun. He showed me some of his work, and gave me a piece he did of a peacock. I really appreciated that. It’s a lovely piece.

He also gave me the address of the brush shop in Toyohashi I need to go to, and told me to tell the owner that he sent me. Cool.

He also gave me some great advice about calligraphy in general. He thinks I shouldn’t worry so much over getting the forms right, since he thinks I have those down pretty much, and I should try to be more bold and adventurous in my calligraphy.

I can do that!

More Tests

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Dec 062011

Today we had our last conversation and writing tests. I already wrote my sakubun, so that part was pretty easy. The only tough bit for me was conversation, and I’m getting better at that.

Really, since I got here, I’ve come such a long way, it’s surprising. I may not have nailed the grammar, but I’m a lot better at expressing myself in Japanese, both in writing and in speaking, and I’m getting better at “Reading the air,” as they call it here. It means that I’m learning all of the little social things that you need to be able to do so you don’t come across as weird/creepy/intimidating.

Calligraphy Lesson

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Dec 052011

Today’s JBPP lesson was about taking phone messages. That was good practice, because I can’t always catch everything that’s said to me in Japanese, remember it all in Japanese, and write it all down in Japanese. It takes practice!

After school, I had my calligraphy lesson with S-buchou, who works at Yamasa, and is a fine calligrapher. He creates some beautiful work. There was a small group of about four of us. Z-san from my JBPP class was also there.

Today’s lesson was on the character for dragon, because next year is the year of the dragon, and it’s useful if you want to write å¹´è³€çŠ¶ ãã‚“ãŒã˜ã‚‡ã† nengajou, or New Year’s postcards. Some people buy them, some do them by hand. Handmade are the best, but they take a lot of time to make.

Just about everyone in the class is better than I am. I’m out of practice, but I also know that even though I’ve been studying for five years or so, I still have a long ways to go.

I can write the characters just fine, but I don’t know how to add the right level of “oomph!” to it to make it as impactful as I’d like it to be.

S-buchou is really into ãƒ‡ã‚¶ã‚¤ãƒ³æ›¸é“ dezain shodou, or maybe the best way to put it is shodou that has non-traditional artistic elements to it. So instead of just writing the character for dragon, make the character for dragon with the characteristics of a dragon. It makes for really cool artistic expressions of what the artist’s image of a character is.

He’s a really neat person to talk to. I’m so glad my Japanese has gotten to the point where we can chat!

He showed us this one long brush that was impossible to handle. As you use up ink, it goes from being a fluid, flowing brush to suddenly seizing up into some twisted shape. It’s like trying to write with a small animal’s tail, while the small animal is still using it. I want one! (Brush, not animal.)

I love the results I got with that brush. I have a feeling, though, that it will take me 20 years or so to get the hang of it.

S-buchou agreed to meet with me on Wednesday so we can talk about where I can get one. He knows a guy in Toyohashi who made his brush, and can sell me one, too.

Toyohashi is a great place to go for calligraphy brushes (fude in Japanese). It’s a region where they’ve been making them for quite a while now, and the quality is famous in Japan. I’m excited! I’ll probably go to Toyohashi on Saturday.

Nonbiri Saturday

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Dec 032011

I took it easy today. No Saturday trip to Nagoya.

I went to the local post office to get some of their biggest boxes, because I’m going to need them soon. I need to fill some of those up and get them out ASAP. Time flies. Soon I’ll have to go to Tokyo, then back to the US.

After I dropped the boxes off at the apartment, I went to Kurita, the local office supplies store, to get stuff like packing tape and binder dividers. My binder is starting to get more and more organized, but I still have a small pile of papers left.

Then a trip to Family Mart for some dinner, and then home.

I’m not going to bother studying for tomorrow’s JLPT. It’s mostly a dry run for me, so I get an idea of what I’m up against now that I’m going to start challenging N1. I’m more worried about doing well at Yamasa, and there’s plenty to study for the tests here.

Kitsutsuki and Mokumoku

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Dec 022011

The den/kitchen area bulb went out this morning. Boo. One incandescent bulb left.

We started getting ready for the conversation test on next Tuesday, so we were assigned our partners. I’m with V-san, who saved me that 10,000 yen a few weeks ago. She’s really good. Much better than I am at this. Then again, she and her husband have lived here for a while.

I’ve been going to ãã¤ã¤ã Kitsutsuki a lot for lunch, and it’s done wonders for my overall feeling of health. I feel more å…ƒæ°— ã’ã‚“ã genki— lively, and less ã ã‚‹ã„ darui— sluggish.

I started eating there a week or so ago, and the food is great. I had been eating sandwiches from Domy (the grocery store down the street), but Kitsutsuki is more like food your Japanese mom would make. Three ladies work behind the counter, and they do everything from make the food to serve it, to handling the check. They make some wicked good food.

Generally, the best bet is to just order the A set, which is 550 yen, and comes with all the water you can drink.

You get a bowl of rice, a bowl of incredible miso soup, some steamed vegetables, and a main dish of some kind or another. Sometimes it’s stir fry and vegetables, sometimes it’s fried cutlets and shredded cabbage, sometimes it’s a fish thing, but it’s always, always good.

Kitsutsuki is on the Yamasa campus, right next to ZigZag, but not just students eat there. I see a lot of local folks eating there, too.

What I’ve learned from watching the locals eat is that if you dump the main dish over the rice, it tastes really good.

Nagoya for the Umpteenth Time

We finished out the week in JBPP with more practice turning people down.

After class, I took a trip to Nagoya to do some shopping. It might be one of my last chances to do it, since I have a lot of tests coming up (and the JLPT on Sunday. OMG.)

So I swung by some bookstores, looked at some CDs and used games, picked up some doughnuts, and went to Mokumoku again for dinner.

While I was waiting for a table at Mokumoku, who should I run into but the guy I met in Kyoto last weekend! Wow, it really IS a small world. We had dinner together, and I showed him how the restaurant works. We had a really interesting conversation about various economics-related stuff.

Dinner was great, and a lot of fun, too.

After that, I grabbed the 10:30 train home and got back in around 11:15 or so.

Long day, but good.

Genkan Confessional

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Dec 012011

I have a confession to make.

I have sinned.

I have generally been a good resident of Japan for the last few months, but I couldn’t help it.

I walked in my apartment with my shoes on.

It just slipped my mind, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I had a long day, and was tired.

I had to go and wipe the floors down, because even I could see the shoe prints on the hardwood floors. A maintenance guy was coming soon, too, so I had to hurry.

He came to change some impossible-to-reach light bulbs that have burned out on me, and to fix my curtain rod, which has been at a rather precarious angle for the past few days.

He was very nice and fixed everything, but now my nice, warm incandescent bulbs have been replaced by the harsh, cold glare of compact fluorescent bulbs. I’ve got two incandescent bulbs left– one in the entry hall, and one in the den, so the mix of light colors looks weird and kind of sickly.

I know CF lights are better for saving energy (and saving energy is big in Japan these days), but I wish they’d fix the color temperatures so they looked more natural.

There’s still lots more testing and other exciting events coming up. Next Monday, I’m having a calligraphy class (wooot!). Next Tuesday, I have another sakubun test and another speaking/conversation test. Wednesday we have to retake the aptitude test we took when we got here, Thursday is for re-tests, and so is Friday.

A full week coming up.

I also went to ZigZag tonight for dinner. The rice was delicious.

Candy Ensures Exam Success

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Nov 302011

We got tested to bits this morning. First there was a listening test, then a grammar test. The listening questions all came from either JLPT practice tests or old JLPT tests, to they were really tricky.

I don’t like JLPT listening questions, because they’re all “gotcha” games. I never have conversations like these with real people.

The conversation flows something like this: “Hey, have you seen the football?” “No, did your mother hide the football again?” “I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll go (unintelligible word) instead.”

And the answer always hinges on the (unintelligible word) bit.

The written part wasn’t too bad, since I studied for it, but my brain is pretty much empty at this point.

I also had to rewrite my sakubun test by the end of 5th period.

Good times.

Candy for Winning Spirit!

S sensei gave out KitKats in out last N2 class today, and explained why. In Japan, a lot of people are superstitious about things to do before tests, and KitKat bars are seen as lucky, because kitto katsu is how they interpret it, which means “definitely win.”

So eating a KitKat before a big test is like psyching up for it.

Also, tonkatsu or katsudon is also good winning food. Basically, anything with katsu in it. Katsu is the word that means “win.”

Stay away from losing or falling things, because when someone fails, they use a verb that really means “to fall.” So avoid anything with “fall” or “lose” in it. (And don’t fall down the stairs and lose your keys on the way to the test, or else you’re doomed!)

I forgot to mention that the omiyage went over well with everyone on Monday, especially the teachers.

Postcards From the JBPP Edge, How to Read Japanese Food Labels

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Nov 282011

Today was the final exam for my N1 grammar class. I think I did okay. Not great, but good enough. JBPP takes up a lot of time, as do my regular classes, and daily life eats up another chunk. I’m taking this more as an introduction to N1 level grammar, because I know that there’s still a lot I have to learn, so I’m not worrying too much about it right now.

We’re starting to do a lot of reviewing for the upcoming big tests in the main classes on Wednesday. Fun.

I’m a little tired after all the traveling this weekend, but it was fun, and I feel recharged.

In JBPP, we started working on how to mail letters. Snail mail is still important every now and then, so I have to know how to send letters properly. And it’s the sort of skill that transfers over to email as well.

Souvenirs!

Here are a few photos of the souvenirs I bought for everyone in Kyoto. I’m actually posting this from the future, but it fits with my “Kyoto Arc” here.

The cookie/wafer things came in two varieties:

A fall leaf motif:

Some kind of grass motif?

Anyway, they were a big hit with everyone. People like getting stuff.

How to Read Nutritional Info on Japanese Food!

Since I’m just tacking stuff onto this post, I might as well tack this on, too. It’s a really important survival skill in Japan if you have any dietary needs. That skill is how to decipher those labels!

Let’s start with the nutrition info from my cheese slices:

So the æ „é¤Š bit above the box is saying “Nutritional Information.” 1æžš means one slice, 18g å½“ãŸã‚Š means approx. 18 grams. (Well, it means exactly 18 grams, but realistically, it’s approximately.)

Now, let’s analyze the stuff in the box:

ã‚¨ãƒãƒ«ã‚®ãƒ¼ this is “energy,” measured in calories. (They use the more accurate kcal, for kilocalorie, but we just call them calories in the US.)
ãŸã‚“ã±ãè³ª this is protein.
è„‚è³ª this is fat.
ç‚æ°´åŒ–ç‰© these are carbohydrates.
ãƒŠãƒˆãƒªã‚¦ãƒ this is sodium.
ã‚«ãƒ«ã‚·ã‚¦ãƒ this is calcium.

The last bit, the é£Ÿå¡©ç›¸å½“é‡ bit, is just telling you the table salt equivalent of the sodium in the product. So each slice has roughly half a gram of salt in it.

Let’s apply this to convenience store food, because I eat a lot of it. (It’s probably bad for me!)

I bought some butajiru udon the other day. (It’s pork soup with udon noodles in it.)

Okay, the 11.11.23 bit is the “best by” date. 2011, November 23 is how you read it. The ãƒ—ãƒ© bit means that the whole thing is recycled with the plastic trash.

Below that, you see 1600w and 500w? Those are cooking times depending on your microwave’s wattage. One minute and twenty seconds for a 1600 watt, and four minutes for a 500 watt. (Useful!)

Now, under that is the actual nutritional information.

1é£Ÿå½“ãŸã‚Š we saw something similar before, but basically it means “one serving.”
ç†±é‡ is our calories again, just using a different way to say it.
è›‹ç™½è³ª is just another way to write ãŸã‚“ã±ãè³ª, except they used kanji. It’s still protein!
è„‚è³ª is back again. It’s still fat.
ç‚æ°´åŒ–ç‰© is also back again, still carbohydrates.
ï¼®ï½ refers to sodium by its periodic table name.

Everything else is the list of ingredients, and the address of the maker.

Hope this helps you figure out what’s on your plate!

Kinkakuji, Gion, LL Bean, and Going Home (Sunday, part 2)

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Nov 272011

It was an interesting bus ride to Kinkakuji, since I had to stand the whole trip. It was kind of like surfing on a whale in choppy seas. A very crowded whale.

I saw a group of American guys on bicycles doing some kind of tour of Kyoto while I was waiting for the bus. It looked like something that would be fun in the off-peak season, whenever that is.

By the time I got to Kinkakuji by bus, I stopped off at a place full of benches outside of the temple to take a short rest break, because I had been on my feet for most of the day so far, and I saw the guys on bicycles come riding in. So the bus was faster this time, but I’m sure bicycling in Kyoto has its own charms.

Right outside of the temple grounds, there’s a good view of one of the big characters they light on fire on the top of one of the nearby mountains.

It’s Still Made of Gold, and Tourists!

Visiting Kinkakuji is always a bit of a stuggle. It’s a struggle to get there, and when I get there, it’s a struggle for a good spot with a good view for a good shot. Sometimes it feels like too much work.

Coming in, even though the sky was gray, the leaves added some nice color. And there were some big crowds there, too!

Getting closer to the entrance:

The map of the temple grounds:

Entering the main gate:

For 200 yen, you can ring the bell!

I got there, and it was gold, pretty, and full of pretty red leaves. So naturally the crowds were amazingly packed in. (I think it was also in one of those popular magazines, but it’s Kinkakuji anyway. It’s one of the most famous buildings in Japan.)

But it was beautiful, in the only way a golden building sitting in the middle of lake can be.

Don’t believe me? Have a look!

I like this shot with extra Japanese Maple leaves in it:

Detail of the phoenix on the roof:

A close-up shot of the side of the pavilion.

And everyone is lined up to take a è¨˜å¿µå†™çœŸ (ããã‚“ã—ã‚ƒã—ã‚“ kinenshashin) or souvenir photograph.

On the way out, I got an omikuji, which is a slip of paper with a fortune on it you can buy at temples and shrines in Japan. I got a å‰ ãã¡ kichi, which means “good luck” fortune. This was a good omen.

Kyoto is sometimes a mess, and it’s often a battle with frustration, but it can be an incredible experience if you’re willing to put up with the little annoyances. Just understand that that’s the nature of the city. It’s the traditional cultural center of Japan, so you’re not just going up against foreign tourists, who were pretty thin on the ground here this time, but you’re really going up against large crowds of mostly Japanese tourists.

I Don’t Think We’re in Freeport Anymore

Done with Kinkakuji, I grabbed a cab to Kita Oji station, figuring that a cab all the way to Kiyomizu temple would be insanely expensive.

I got to the station (cost: 1,050 yen for ~ 1 mile), and what do I see?

An L.L. Bean store! YES! Score! Thanks å‰! I owe you one!

Why am I excited about seeing an L.L. Bean store when I could instead be looking at some more temples and shrines and getting more cultured?

I’ll tell you.

I’ve been freezing my tail off for the last 4 weeks or so, mainly because I can’t find clothes that fit me. I wear an XL in US sizes. An XL in Japanese sizes is closer to a skinny L or a fat M in US sizes. A US XL is more like a fat XXL or a skinny XXXL. Good luck with finding that at 99% of clothing stores here. I can’t find any clothes that fit me in the Japanese stores around Okazaki. Even the North Face store in Nagoya was a bust.

And it’s not like I’m particularly big for an American guy. I’m pretty average, but I have a big chest and big shoulders, so I’m kind of screwed.

I decided to check out the L.L. Bean store, and they still had about half of their men’s clothes in US sizes. (Oh, thank GOD!)

Sadly, they were converting a lot of their wardrobe to Japanese sizes. Don’t even bother to try to buy shoes there if your shoe size is over 10 (US) — you’re out of luck. Not that I needed shoes, but it’s a useful thing to know.

I found a plaid polartec button-down shirt, a sweatshirt, and a polartec hat. Woot! But now I had another problem. I had a bag full of bulky clothes to carry around with me, and that simply would not do.

Omiage Means “Thinking of You, and How to Fulfill My Societal Obligations to You”

I headed back to Kyoto Station, in search of another locker.

When I got there, I remembered something important: I needed to buy ãŠåœŸç”£ã€€ãŠã¿ã‚„ã’ã€€omiyage (souvenirs) for my fellow classmates and teachers. It’s just what you do here, and the students at Yamasa, even though they are from all over the world, have all picked up on this tradition.

So what should I buy for classmates and teachers? Well, it turns out that there are whole shops in the train stations devoted to providing the best omiyage to meet every conceivable social obligation.

I went to the store near the escalators and found some lovely rice crackers with a fall leaf design painted on them with some kind of edible frosting, I think. So I bought a box of 20 individually wrapped rice crackers for about 2,000 yen, and I was done.

Yep, I was done. I’ll give everyone a cracker on Monday, and they’ll be pleased. It’s not the present, it’s the fact that you went to the trouble to get people a little something. Of course, with other kinds of gift-giving, you have to put a lot more thought into it, because gift-giving here can be a minefield. But that’s not an issue today.

Food makes the best omiyage, because people can eat it and not worry about it taking up space. Space here comes at a premium.

Then I dumped everything in a locker, and checked the Shinkansen departures board for trains to Nagoya. They were starting to fill up fast. I got in line at the ticket office, and got a ticket on the 8:52 pm Hikari bound for Nagoya (and Tokyo, but I don’t care about Tokyo now.)

My only mistake was getting a window seat. Otherwise, it was brilliant to get my ticket now.

Goin’ to Gion

I used Wikitravel on my Nexus One to find a place to eat. I found a yakitori chain popular in Kyoto, and went to their Gion branch. It took a while to find it, because it wasn’t at street level– it was on the 5th floor of a nondescript building. Dinner on a stick was great. I had yakitori, yakiniku, a salad, and onion rings all for 1400 yen. Not bad. That was really my first full meal of the day, because I had been running around so much before.

After that, I headed to Gion to do some sightseeing. Gion is famous for expensive restaurants and geisha, among other things. It’s also famous for tourists and the shops that cater to them. It’s a lively and fun area. I stopped at a few shops here and there.

As soon as I crossed the bridge, I spotted the Minami-za Kabuki Theater, so of course I took some photos:

A few closeups:

The main road (Shijo Dori) through Gion goes for about half a kilometer or so, then ends at a shrine, Yasaka Jinja. Here’s a shot of the road from the front steps of the shrine.

When I got to the shrine, all of the lanterns were lit up for the evening, so it looked really pretty. I took some photos, of course.

Entering the main gate:

Heading to the stage:

One of the many lanterns at the shrine:

Artsy shot as I get closer to the stage:

A few shots of the lanterns surrounding the stage:

I really like this shot:

The south gate of the shrine:

At this point, my Canon 60D’s battery crapped out, and I switched to the tiny little Canon IXY I kept in my pocket.

Another couple of shots of the stage, this time with the IXY:

A lantern with some tied up fortune slips (omikuji) to remove the bad luck from bad draws.

Cool looking vending machine area:

Heading out and back to JR Kyoto Station:

It got to around 7:30, so I decided it was time to head back to the station so I don’t miss my train. It took 45 minutes or so just to get to the station, with all of the changing trains.

At one point, the subway car I was in just stopped at Shiyakushoumae (the station in front of the Kyoto city hall), and said, “That’s it. End of the line.” I needed to go one more stop. Vexing.

But I did get a good shot of the calorie-counting stairs!

I got back to JR Kyoto at 8:20, and headed to the restroom to freshen up. When I was done, I was in for a rather nasty surprise– there was no TP in the stall! I had to go back to the front of the restroom and buy toilet paper for 100 yen.

The joy of travel. I learn all kinds of new things every time.

I picked up my luggage from the various lockers I had stuffed it in, and made my way to the Shinkansen platform. I had time to kill, so I got an ekiben, which is short of é§…å¼å½“ã€€ãˆãã¹ã‚“ã¨ã† eki bentou, which winds up as ãˆãã¹ã‚“ or ekiben. A bentou is a meal served in a box. Sometimes it’s in a flashy, expensive box, and sometimes it’s just in a plastic box you recycle when you’re done. Ekibens are specialty bentous only sold at certain train stations. Every station has its own specialty.

I got mine, and waited for the train. It showed up, we got on, and then we had to wait 10 minutes for something to get cleared up, because someone somewhere hit an emergency button.

We all got lectured on how we should never do that.

The window seat was a terrible idea. The person in the aisle seat had built a fortress of luggage and crap that made it impossible for me to get to my seat without her having to move it all.

So when we were getting close to Nagoya, I almost killed myself falling over her crap trying to get to mine and get off of the train on time. My jacket got caught on something and everything just tumbled all over the car.

I’m never ever getting a window seat again.

I usually get aisle seats, no matter how long the trip is. I like being able to get out of my seat without too much fuss.

I managed to get off the train in Nagoya without any further incidents, took a moment to get sorted out, headed to platform 2 to catch my train to Okazaki… and promptly missed it by 30 seconds.

I had already used up that å‰ at L.L. Bean, it seems.

Or did I?

I managed to get a good waiting spot (I could lean on a post), and when the train came in, I was first in line, so I got a seat all the way back to Okazaki. Yay.

Don’t put your shinkansen ticket in the local train wicket. When I got to Okazaki, I had to go to the ticket office to get my tickets all sorted out because I did that. Oops.

I grabbed a cab home, and had a nice chat with the cabbie about the four seasons. In Japan, they are firmly convinced that they invented the concept of four distinct seasons, each with its own unique flavor.

Well, it’s interesting to point out that we have four very distinct seasons in the US, even more so depending on where you live, because there’s so much climatological variation here. How we celebrate the various seasons really does depend on where one lives.

In North Carolina, for instance, we have our own leaf-peeper season in fall, too. Just try to get a hotel room in Asheville in mid-October. I dare you. Summer is crazy hot here, spring is wonderful, and winter… well, winter can vary a bit, but it’s generally cold. Not much snow, but we get it. (In 2000, we got over two feet of it where I live.)

I got home, started up the washing machine, and crashed. It was a successful trip in all sorts of ways.

I want to go back to Kyoto and spend some serious time there drinking it all in.

But next time, I think I’ll do it in spring.

First Night in Kyoto

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Nov 252011

Man, I’m tired. I raced back to the apartment after JBPP, frantically packed, tossed out anything I didn’t need, repacked, still had too much, but left anyway. Yuck. Too heavy. I tried to take the bike to the station, but realized instantly that that was a horrible idea. The walk to the station wasn’t much better.

I really want to be one of those dudes who can just travel with a toothbrush and a spare pair of underpants. Seriously, how do they do that?

I managed to get a seat on the train to Nagoya, then grabbed a Nozomi to Kyoto.

PINning Down My Tickets

Here’s a tip: if you want to use a credit card, and you don’t have or remember your PIN number, buy your shinkansen tickets at a smaller station and talk to a human, if you can speak Japanese.

If you can’t, then go to the bigger stations, like Nagoya or Tokyo, and stand in line. The people working the counters there speak excellent English, or can find someone who does. (I learned this in 2007.)

If I had gotten my ticket at Okazaki instead of Nagoya, I would have saved 20-30 minutes of standing in line.

If you have/know your PIN, just use the machines. It’s a LOT faster. But if you’re trying to do something complex, humans are more helpful.

Hello Kyoto

I got to Kyoto at around 6:30, then headed straight to the APA Hotel, which was right outside of JR Kyoto. Fortunately, I had my confirmation number with me, because nobody in either Japan or the US can spell my name to save their lives.

The room was okay, but pricey: 10,000 yen.

I checked in, crashed for a few minutes, then headed over to Bic Camera to finally get a circular polarizer. I’ve been putting off buying one for too long. I looked around a bit, and found one.

Then I headed up to the restaurants on the 11th floor of Isetan, because it was starting to get late.

The Christmas decorations are already up:

I found a good okonomiyaki shop, and had a good modern yaki with bacon. That’s good stuff!

After that, I headed down to the second floor of the station, and went to Cafe du Monde for a beignet… only to find out that the Cafe du Monde in Kyoto Station does not serve beignets. What the hell?? It’s Cafe freakin’ du Monde! They do sell hot dogs and coffee. But no beignets? There was a Mister Donut next to it, so I waited for 10 minutes and ordered some donut-looking things from them.

It Has a Hole in the Middle

As I headed out of the station, I took a couple of photos of the Kyoto Tower Hotel, which was very purple tonight:

Then I went to the Lawson outside of the station, and it was jammed full of people. It was a madhouse. I decided to go ahead and get breakfast as well as beverages, because I wanted to save a trip here in the morning. (Seriously, it was nuts.)

I headed back to the room.

My room if full of amenities. See?

Then I ate my donuts. The MisDo (as they call Mister Donut here) donuts were really mediocre, like not very good grocery store donuts that had all of the flavor chased out of them by the bland police. Frankly, Harris-Teeter’s chocolate donuts taste better, and they’re average at best.

Now I understand why the lines at Krispy Kreme are so long here; these people haven’t been eating proper doughnuts! (There’s a difference between donuts and doughnuts, but I don’t want to get into it right now.)

The MisDo chocolate donut just tasted like it was… brown flavored.

I called home to let them know I was still alive, then I sacked out early. Gotta get up early, too. Tomorrow will probably be chaotic on a level I haven’t seen yet.

My Manly Hat

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Nov 242011

Two of my classmates, N-san and the other N-san, mocked my 1000 yen gloves. They told me that I should have bought them at the Daiso, the local 100 yen shop. Of course, they pride themselves on getting the absolute best bargains, no matter what.

But I’m a little leery of buying 100 yen clothes, because I’m afraid I’m going to get some kind of awful rash or something. “It’s 100 yen for a reason,” is how I see it.

That said, tonight was extra cold, so on my way to ZigZag, when I stopped off at the Daiso to look for light bulbs (mine have been dying off at an alarming rate), I found a great 100 yen ç”·å‰ otokomae, or “manly” hat.

I couldn’t find any decent light bulbs, though.

The hat itches like hell, and looks like a 100 yen hat. But it keeps my head warm.

No rash, either. Not yet, anyway.

It’s black, so it makes me look like a burglar in one of those Hollywood “heist” movies.

In other news, D who runs ZigZag says he’ll take my excess supplies. That’s good news. It would be awful if I was forced to throw them away when I leave in a few weeks. I’m sure he can make something delicious out of them.

I managed to find a hotel for Kyoto… for Friday night. No luck at all for Saturday night. The whole town is booked solid. I’ll probably just stay at an Internet cafe. It’ll be an adventure!

Feeling the Heat, and the Cold

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Nov 232011

Today was the real deal interview test in JBPP. That was pressure I could feel.

The interviewers were a couple of our teachers, but it was still stressful, because they were asking hard questions, and I not only had to answer in Japanese, I had to answer in the proper degree of polite Japanese.

That’s enough to make my brain melt a little.

I also had to remember to knock, open the door, bow, stand, sit, etc. all in the proper fashion.

It’s a lot to remember, but I think I did okay.

Family Mart Rocks

After class, I went to Domy to get some groceries, and got some good deals on the various stuff on sale, like bananas.

It’s been really cold these past few days, and I’ve been miserable. I really underpacked for the weather, and the lack of American-sized clothes here is killing me. I can’t find anywhere around here that sells anything larger than a medium.

Japan’s XL is America’s M. Well, slightly larger than M, but effectively M, because it’s smaller than L even. Japan’s XXL is just about an L. I’m an XL guy, so it’s been an exercise in futility trying to find anything that would fit me.

Even if I drop 20-30 pounds, it won’t change the fact that I have big lungs, big shoulders, and a large rib cage.

But on my way out of the Family Mart tonight, I got a reprieve. I saw that they were selling Thinsulate gloves for 1000 yen. That will help a lot. They even offered to cut the tags off for me at the register.

That was pretty awesome.

Okazaki-jo and Anjo

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Nov 202011

I decided to go to Okazaki Castle today, to continue my Tokugawa-themed weekend. The weather started out really nice today, so I just wore a T-shirt and my black windbreaker, because it was a little windy.

There are two options to get to the Castle from where I live. Option one: walk/bike there. It’s about 3 miles away, so it’ll take about 30 minutes or so. I would also have to walk/bike back. Option two: take the train. Sounds much faster, but it isn’t. Upside is that at least by taking the train, I don’t use up too much energy to do so. (Other than the energy it takes to get to JR Okazaki.)

On the way to the station, I took a few photos:

The bike shop that moved out a few weeks ago has already been turned into a flat lot. That was fast.

I pass by this rice field every day on the way to school. It’s a little strange having a rice field in the middle of a sprawling suburban city like Okazaki, but it’s also kind of cool.

I like the dog’s expression in this sign:

To get to the castle, I needed to take the Aichi Line, and one thing to keep in mind is that the Aichi Line isn’t run by JR. It’s a different company, so I needed a different ticket, which I could buy outside of the wicket.

Like a doofus, I used my SUICA card, and caused all sorts of problems when I got to the station near Okazaki Castle. I’m sure they see that all the time, though. A few hundred yen and a ticket later, everything was solved.

The Matsudairas’ Place

I got to Okazaki Castle Park, and made my way to the castle.

Here’s a map so we don’t get lost:

First, the park. This bridge leads to a shrine I didn’t go to, but it’s very photogenic:

The park was very pretty, and I bet it would be even more so in Spring.

The castle itself is five stories high, and hiding behind a couple of pine trees.

There were two tickets available. For 200 yen, you can just go up the castle, or for 500 yen, you can go up the castle and to the Ieyasu and Mikawa Bushido Museum next door. I paid 500 yen, because it sounded like a good deal to me.

As I climbed up the donjon, I took a look at the various exhibits about Okazaki’s various feudal lords, and some of the stuff they found on the site. Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but interesting if you live in Okazaki, and can read/speak Japanese.

One fact of note: it’s not the original castle. Most of the castles you see in Japan aren’t original. Many were torn down after the Meiji Restoration, or were destroyed in World War II. Most were rebuilt in the 1950s to spur on tourism, and/or preserve history, depending on your point of view. How accurate they are is a good question.

I made it to the 5th floor observation deck, and the wind was just howling. It must have been around 30-40 MPH, and it was cold. I was starting to regret my wardrobe choice. I really need more warm clothes. It’s getting chilly here!

There was a chain link fence up all around the balcony, so I couldn’t use my Canon EOS to take pictures.

This is what happens with a regular SLR:

Instead, I snuck the lens of my IXY through the gaps in the grid to get some decent shots of the Okazaki skyline. About as decent as you’ll get for a 13,000 yen camera, anyway.

I knitted some of the shots into a panorama or two. The first one is a wee bit wobbly if you zoom in on it at Flickr.

I headed down and took some photos of the park and the exterior of the castle and the museum, and went inside.

A statute of Motoyasu Matsudaira (who I’m pretty sure became Tokugawa Ieyasu):

A really cool clock made out of flowers:

Another interesting clock closer to the museum:

Finally, the Ieyasu and Mikawa Bushido Museum:

The museum is all about the Tokugawas and the battle of Sekigahara. Pretty interesting stuff, if you know your Japanese history. (I’m a little shaky.) They had the famous spear Tonbogiri as well. Well, the spearhead, anyway. One of Ieyasu’s generals wielded that one.

They had a neat exhibit where you could try lifting some mock weapons to see how heavy the real things were, and they had some armor you could try on to see how “comfortable” it was. Not bad for 300 yen.

If you have kids, that might be pretty fun if you’re in or near Okazaki for the day. Not fun enough to bring them across Japan to see it, unless they’re really big history buffs, but fun if you’re close by.

Yeah, I Like Shodo, So Sumi!

After that, I headed off to Anjo to pick up some calligraphy brushes for a friend of mine back in the US. I found a promising-looking shop by doing lots of searching online in Google Maps. The tricky bit is knowing what search terms to use. That took a bit of work, actually.

Leaving the park and heading back to the station to go to Anjo:

I took the Meitetsu line to Shin-Anjo and walked about half a kilometer to the shop. The lady there helped me a lot. She showed me some of their brushes, and let me try one out with water and one of those sheets that you can write with water on. You write with water on it, and it gets dark, then as it dries, it goes back to being all the same color again. It’s good for practicing calligraphy, or just for trying out brushes, but keep in mind that water does not flow like real ink does.

I found a good brush for my friend for around 3,000 yen (which is a good price for a practice brush), and then started searching for good practice-grade paper. I learned a lot about paper that day from the shop owner.

I have so much to learn about calligraphy, that I could probably spend the rest of my life on that alone and not even get close to mastering it. But I did find some good practice paper. I got 1,000 sheets for myself, and I’ll come back before I leave to pick up 1,000 more for my friend.

We chatted a bit in Japanese. I keep saying it, but it’s true: knowing some Japanese is the key to having everything go smoothly here.

Why? Because she gave me some freebies and a discount, too!

I think seeing a foreigner who could speak Japanese and write with a brush come to her shop to buy calligraphy supplies made her day. It was a great experience for me, too.

By the time I finished up with my purchases, it was already dark, and time to head home. As I opened the shop door to leave, the first thing that I noticed was that it was freezing outside.

Note to self: next time, check the weather forecast before you go out!

Also, buy some warmer gear!

I’m Only Happy When It Rains

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Nov 192011

It was pouring rain, but I decided to go to Nagoya anyway. Since my plans to go to Kyoto this weekend were ruined, I refused to sit in my apartment all day. I was itching to go out and do something.

My pants got soaked twice by the time I rode my bike to the station. I stopped off on the way to the station at the school, and hung out in Aoi Hall for a few minutes while I tried to dry off. Then when I headed back out again, I got soaked almost immediately.

I have a pair of North Face hiking pants that are supposed to dry quickly, and they do, but they also get wet quickly in a downpour, umbrella or no umbrella. Oh well.

Nothing Is More Refreshing Than the Rain

Meanwhile, at the station, JR Tokai was having its “Sawayaka Walking Tour,” or “Refreshing Walking Tour” of Okazaki event going on today. They are holding the event all over the Tokai region on various days.

I suppose it’s refreshing today, in the same way a cold shower while being fully clothed is refreshing.

I grabbed a train to Nagoya, and headed to the Mermaid Cafe for a quick bite because I skipped breakfast. Then I went to the information booth at the station to find the fastest way to get to the Tokugawa Art Museum. I started asking in Japanese, but she forced me into English.

I didn’t think my Japanese was that bad. Maybe her desire to use English was just stronger than my desire to use Japanese.

She showed me the city bus lines and the tourist bus lines. I decided on the city line, because it was cheaper, and because I thought it would be faster.

Back out in the soaking rain, the bus shows up at 2:35 instead of 2:20, and doesn’t get to the stop I want until 3:10.

Maybe the tourist buses would have been faster.

Also, every time the bus stopped, the engine cut off. Every time it got ready to move, the engine started up, and the driver announced that he’s going to move the bus.

That’s one major difference between Japan and the US.

The Tokugawa Art Museum

I got off at my stop and started trying to find the museum, and it was still pouring rain. I got soaked for the fourth time by now, I think. I found it eventually.

Here it is!

The museum had some really neat exhibits. There were swords from the 12th century on display, and a special exhibition of a lot of material from the Tale of Genji— manuscripts, etc., and they had a lot of tea ceremony stuff and incense burners on display, too. Actually, they had quite a lot of those on display.

If you like cultural stuff, then I’d recommend it.

The gardens are supposed to be really nice, but since it was late Fall and pouring rain, I can’t say one way or another.

You be the judge:

More Book Shopping!

At 4:30, I headed out and grabbed a cab to go to Ozone station. The driver was a nice guy. We had a nice talk about politics, in Japanese, of course.

Once again, I must reiterate the importance of speaking the language, wherever you go. You don’t have to be great at it, but people will generally appreciate it if you try to speak their language. I find I get a whole lot more out of living here by speaking Japanese. I can’t imagine living here longer than a few weeks without speaking it.

Also, talking to everyone in Japanese is great practice. And fun, too! I learn a whole lot more about Japan by talking to people than by reading books or watching TV. Maybe it’s my reporter background kicking in.

From Ozone, I took a JR line train to Chi-something, then grabbed the subway to Sakae to look at a couple of calligraphy supply shops. The first one was pretty good. It’s in one of the municipal buildings, and has a really good selection.

The second shop one was more of an art supply shop, and didn’t have what I was looking for, but it still had some nice stuff if you’re into brush painting more so than calligraphy.

After that, I headed to Osu again. I found a couple of used games, and did a little shopping at a book store where the music was so loud, I thought my ears were going to bleed. I stopped by Mandarake, because they have used games as well as interesting old toys, too. (Like old Godzillas and stuff like that. All ungodly expensive, but it sure takes me back!)

Then I went back to JR Nagoya, to check out Sanseido on the 11th floor. They have a nice collection of books for Japanese language learners, but it took me a few minutes to find it.

After that, I picked up some more doughnuts at Krispy Kreme, then stopped at Mokumoku for dinner.

I got home around 10:30 pm, by which time the rain had stopped, so my bike ride home wasn’t so bad. I got a full day in in spite of the rain.

I win!

Cushion Words Are Not a Kind of Pillow Talk

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Nov 182011

Woot. Friday. The weeks are getting more intense, work-wise.

I talked to one of my classmates, P-san, for a bit. She’s a nice person, and easy to talk to. We usually wind up talking in English instead of Japanese. She’s got a lot of interesting things to say, and she’s been through a lot, so it’s always fun to compare notes with someone who’s experienced a lot.

He Stuffs His Phrases with Cushions!

JBPP was about asking people for favors again, using lots of “cushion words.” Sounds much more comfortable than it is.

The concept is that some things are just not to be broached without a set phrase to “soften the blow.” And these phrases are called “cushion words.”

For example, you might start off by apologizing (without the other party even knowing why, but that’s what works), or apologizing for interrupting, or apologizing for interrupting at such a busy time, etc.

And the request itself is softened, too. “I realize that you’re terribly busy, but if you have a moment today, could you please take a look at this, it would really be a great help.”

That sort of thing, only in polite Japanese.

We use cushion words in English, too, but I think my fellow Americans use much less padding sometimes, at least internally. For dealing with customers, we use a lot of cushion words, too, we just may not realize it.

Beer + FaceBook = Bad Choices

This evening I went to ZigZag for dinner and a beer again.

I was reminded again that people can be scary, no matter what country you’re in. Alchol makes this worse.

Tonight’s example: One of the local women was trying to stalk one of the students online because she fell in love with his hair. To be more precise, she fell in love with a picture of him, so she wanted his name so she could find his FaceBook page… yeah.

So now you know where stalkers sometimes come from: beer + Facebook.

Not to Brag, But I Think I Did Well on My Tests…

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Nov 172011

The writing and conversation exams weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. It turned out that we could use what we had written beforehand and just copy everything over in class. I’m glad K-san pointed that out to me, or else I would have been totally screwed.

Part of the whole Yamasa experience is learning how they do things here. There’s so much they do here that’s just not how I’m used to doing things, and sometimes the details that everyone just sort of “knows” can slip by a newbie like me.

I really have to ask even more questions than I normally ask!

Fortunately, the conversation exam was pretty much the same as we had practiced in class. I decided to raise the politeness level a bit, and use some of the business Japanese knowledge I have picked up here. I made a couple of mistakes, but overall I think I did okay.

Regardless of test scores, I know that my speaking and writing ability have improved a great deal over the last month of class. Class here is intense, and every day feels like a week of Japanese compared to when I took it in grad school. I wish I had more time and money to spend more than just three months here, but that’s life. I’m trying to wring as much out of this experience as I can, both in polishing my Japanese, gaining marketable skills, and enjoying being here.

One of the lessons I have learned many times over in life is to enjoy things while I can, because I can never take for granted that “Oh, it’ll always be there, so I can just go back.” Sadly, the world is not that predictable.

There’s a Right and a Wrong Way To Open a Door.

Today’s JBPP class was on “How to Conduct Yourself in a Job Interview.”

There’s a whole pile of social knowledge tied into how to open doors, when and where to bow, how to sit, where to put your hands, where to look, all of that. It’s somewhat stressful, because there’s so much to keep straight without one’s head exploding.

Yes, there is a right way to open a door, and a wrong way to do it, down to the number of times you knock. Even approaching and sitting down in the interviewee’s chair is a task that is fraught with peril. For example, never, ever, stand to the right of the chair. Why? Because it implies that you think you’re better than the company, which is represented by the chair.

I had no clue.

Also, never sit back in the chair. You have to sit on the edge of your seat. I’m not sure exactly why– I think it has to do with a feeling that if you sit back in the seat, you think you’re hot stuff, and an interview is not some place to get comfortable and show off. You need to show a certain amount of respect with your body language, and using the chair back does not convey that to Japanese interviewers.

You’re also not supposed to show off. In the US, interviewers expect a certain amount of self-marketing, to the point where job-seekers will point out how often they’ve been indispensable to every organization they’ve worked with. (In which case, why are they unemployed?)

In Japan, you have to walk a really careful line about that, because the culture here frowns on boasting, and loves the whole modesty thing, even if it’s false modesty. As my mother would say, “It’s just not done.” Germans and Japanese have a lot in common that way.

I imagine it’s going to take me a while to figure out how to walk that tightrope.

ZigZag Heals All Wounds

In the evening, I went to ZigZag again for dinner, socializing, and the cheapest Guinness stout in all of Japan. It’s one of my favorite places to kick back and relax.

Yay, ZigZag!

I Regret Nothing… Except Maybe Not Buying a Decent Binder.

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Nov 152011

Had to skip first period today because I wasn’t feeling too well. I’m still feeling crummy tonight, but I soldiered on and went to class anyway.

We have a conversation and composition exam on Thursday, and I need to get ready for that. I have to finish my “regrettable episode” essay for that, and I’m racking my brain to think of something suitably regrettable. I’ll look over some of my previous posts for fodder.

I spent all evening trying to organize my in-class handouts, only to realize that it’s impossible with the tools that I have. We get these giant handouts that are the size of giant place mats, and they’re really difficult to wrangle.

I have tried to cut them in two and stuff them into these “clear file” binder things, but while it works well for the JBPP handouts, it’s not really cutting it for the giant class handouts. The JBPP handouts are A4-sized, so it’s easier to fit them in.

I took a look at what some of my classmates do for the general class stuff, and what I think what really need are binders and a hole punch. Trying to fit these giant printouts in a clear file is just not going to work unless I cut the handouts to ribbons.

Oh, those cool erasable pens everyone’s using? Yeah, turns out the ink will vanish when exposed to high temperatures. Better not leave my notes on the car dashboard or anything like that. Yikes.

I Thought I Smelled Smoke…

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Nov 142011

There was a fire this morning down the street. I heard the sirens wailing all morning long. I figured something was up, but since the earth didn’t shake any, I didn’t think it was anything too widespread. S-kun from class talked to the police, and they said it was probably caused by a cigarette– somebody fell asleep smoking. Apparently that happens a lot here.

Unlike the US, Japan still like cigarettes.

I lucked out in one regard today: S-sensei skipped today’s quiz. It was nice to have a break from that for a change. Mondays are still a little rough. Okay, not as rough as they could be.

I learned some fun new phrases in JBPP today: ã”é æ…®ãªã and ã”å¿ƒé…ãªã (Don’t hold yourself back, and don’t worry, but very polite versions.) I also learned that å¾Œã»ã© can be anything from 15 minutes to never. Sort of like “later,” I guess.

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone!

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Nov 132011

Started off the day by going to Book-Off in Okazaki on 248 to check on a few things. For starters, don’t even bother trying to find Japanese textbooks at Book-Off, because they don’t seem to carry them. I did find some other cheap books there, though.

I headed back to the apartment to drop off my used books, then headed to JR Okazaki to head off to Nagoya again. It was a late start, so I didn’t get to Nagoya until 3:30, and I finally got to Maruzen in Sakae around 4:30 or so. I spent a lot of time looking at book covers. Maruzen has a lot of book covers there, and in a lot of sizes, but unfortunately, they don’t have any big enough to deal with the ultra-thick books I’ve been buying lately.

I went back to the 3rd floor to look at the Japanese language education books again. They have a really good selection. I picked up some good practice books, because for some reason, I suck at particles. I really want to fix the stuff I keep getting wrong.

I Discovered Oatmeal!

Then I went to the grocery store next door, it’s in the Meiji-ya Sakae building. (Look for æ˜Žæ²»å±‹æ „.)

The store had a lot of neat “foreign” foods, and a nice selection. It even had Odlum’s Steel Cut Oats, which are sold in the U.S. as McCann’s. Of course, now I feel like a fool for shipping so much oatmeal over in the first place, but I had no idea they would have oatmeal, let alone proper steel cut oatmeal, in Japan. It’s really smashing stuff for breakfast.

Book-Off was having a 105 yen sale, so I grabbed a few books (yeah, I just bought some in Okazaki, now I’m buying more in Sakae).

After that, I headed over to Osu to see if I could find the Kenkyuusha dictionary for my electronic dictionary at the big electronics store there. No luck. I went to one of the used video game stores there, and found Valkyria Chronicles 3 for the PSP for 1200 yen.

This Time, Try Asking Someone

I decided to go back to JR Nagoya and check Bic Camera again to see if I could get my hands on that Kenkyuusha dictionary. This time I decided to ask around a bit. After some asking around and explaining, the salesperson found a copy of the dictionary I wanted. It’s the Kenkyuusha 5th edition å’Œè‹± dictionary for the Casio electronic dictionaries. Score!

I used all of the points I had saved up for now to reduce the cost of the dictionary by about 2500 yen. See, this is where point cards are really handy. A 12,000 yen dictionary only cost me about 9,500 yen. Still expensive, but much cheaper than the paper version, which runs around 20,000 yen, and it fits in my pocket. (Sort of.)

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone

I looked around to see if I could find a privacy guard for my Nexus One. I couldn’t find one that would fit, but I did see a lot of crap I can glue on my cell phone.

They had all kinds of fake crystals and candy and cupcakes and such… I think I’ll pass for now. I don’t want to cut my hands to shreds on platic candy. (Or see plastic candy all the time and get hungry.)

All of this running around made me hungry, so I headed to Mokumoku again to store up on more vegetables and that great beef stew. I really needed those veggies, even if they cost 2500 yen. (Hey, it’s all you can eat.) Dinner was once again delicious, even if my wallet took a hit. I’ll make up for it during the week by eating cheaply.

I know, I could buy local vegetables and make them more cheaply, but I don’t have the time for it right now.

I made it back to JR Okazaki at 10 pm, and got home at about 10:15 or so. I stopped at Family Mart to get some sandwiches, because I eat Spartan during the week. (If Spartans ate pre-made convenience store ham sandwiches, anyway.)

Installing the Dictionary

I spent about an hour installing the dictionary. I had to run it in Vista emulation mode to get it to run in Win 7-64, then I had to load a piece of software from the Casio website just to get the laptop to recognize the electronic dictionary. Pain in the butt, but it works.

If you have trouble installing dictionaries or getting your Casio recognized by Windows 7, I would head to the Casio Japanese website and look for the bonus software for the Ex-Word series. Installing it will install the correct USB drivers for detecting the Ex-Word series of electronic dictionaries. Now you can run the install software on the dictionary disc.

The good news is that you only have to do it once.

The Student’s New Clothes

Now I need to find some big & tall sports clothes. My North Face shirts are rapidly disintegrating, and it’s getting colder these days. Apparently, the velcro on my pants is chewing up the special knit fabric on the North Face shirts, so the net effect is that my shirts are rapidly getting torn up.

Argh.

The main problem is that Japanese men’s clothing sizes don’t go much beyond the US M size. That’s right, their XL is just a bit baggier than our M.

Happy Pocky Day!

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Nov 112011

It’s Pocky Day here in Japan. In the US, it’s Veteran’s Day, because World War I ended on this day in 1918.

But we’re in Japan, and nobody cares about old European wars when you can have Pocky.

If you look at the numbers, 11-11-11, they all look like happy sticks of chocolate-covered Pocky, just waiting to be eaten!

Re-Making the Grade

Yesterday I got my grade back for my Bannou Fuku Meido presentation a couple of weeks ago. Not bad, considering where I’m coming from, ability-wise. I also got to hear about the test results of the first test. I retook the writing portion, because the first take was a bit of a mess. That involved editing my paper and handing it in for a grade, because there was a lot of red ink on that first paper.

But I did really well on the retake, so I’m happy.

At Yamasa You Get Do-Overs

At Yamasa, you can retake exams if you’re not happy with the results. You not only get to retake exams if you flunk them, you can also take them to improve your score.

That said, it’s extra work to retake the tests, so it’s not something to do to try to change that 95 into a full 100 points.

I’m not used to how to study for the classes here yet. In the US, I know how the system works really well. I know what’s expected, and what to expect on tests. Here, the problem is that I’m not entirely sure what’s going to be on the test, and since all of the instruction is in Japanese, if I miss something, I really miss it.

In JBPP news, I got my resume back. It was drenched in blo– err, red ink. I need to rewrite some chunks of it.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll… Or Just Shake.

There was an earthquake last night, or so I am told. Everyone felt it but me. Maybe I was too absorbed in whatever it was I was doing to notice it, or maybe it didn’t leave an impression on me. I dunno. Strangely I’m kind of bummed that I missed it. It’s kind of like missing the Big Event on TV everyone talks about the next day, but instead I was watching infomercials.

We had a pretty intense little earthquake along the East Coast in August. It lasted a good 30 seconds or so, and scared the crap out of everyone from NYC to South Carolina. Where I live in North Carolina, everything was swaying pretty well.

Last night’s earthquake must not have been very powerful, or maybe it was short.

Monkey In My Backyard

In other news, after class ended, I was talking to my classmates when some local police officers ran by, searching for a wild monkey on the loose. They searched all over the neighborhood, but they couldn’t catch the monkey.

I don’t like to get too close to wild monkeys, because they make me nervous. My mom always warned me that they can tear you to bits, and that has always kind of stuck with me. I’m not afraid of them, I just don’t want them near my face… or any of my more removable body parts, to be honest.

The monkey chase turned into a campus event. Some people went out to see if we could find the monkey. No luck. I didn’t venture too far from the building.

When I got back home, the Slingbox crapped out again, then came back. Ah, technology.

I went to Zig-Zag for dinner tonight again. Declan usually has something interesting in the pot behind the bar, and if not, he can whip up something tasty. Tonight was no exception!

A Short Update

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Nov 102011

This is going to be short.

The Bannou Fuku-Meido presentation results are in. I passed. Yay!

In JBPP, I learned how to use the phrase ã‚ˆã‚ã—ã„ã„ã§ã—ã‚‡ã†ã‹ in a sentence when I want someone to do something, yet I need to be polite. I will probably use this a lot.

For dinner, I made some improvised fried rice with eggs. It came out pretty good.

Resumes are due tomorrow.

I told you it would be short.

They Got the Computer Store, Too!

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Nov 092011

We have to submit our resumes for our JBPP class tomorrow, so I need a USB drive. I headed to the computer store to pick one up.

First I stopped at Family Mart, because I was out of food. (Except for rice. I have plenty of rice.) Anyway, then I went to the computer store. As I approached the door, one of the guys who worked there regretted to inform me that the store was closed, because it’s moving.

Ugh. Again? First the bicycle store, now the computer store, too? It’ll probably be a pile of rubble in 4 days.

So I stood in the parking lot and had a think. Where is the best place to find a cheap USB drive? I decided to go to the mall and try Aeon, and lucked out. I found a cheap USB drive for 898 yen. All it has to do is last for a couple of days, to be honest. Then I saw the big sale on the Frixion stuff. Score!

I’ve already burned through one of the ink cartridges in my blue Frixion pen. Aeon had them for 10% off, so I stocked up.

I browsed the book store again, and saw some really cool kanji books, but they’re kind of expensive. Maybe later. They look like kanji kentei prep books. (But really awesome prep books.) Downside: they’re 1000 yen a piece. A little pricey. Yeah, I said the USB drive was cheap at 898, but I was only buying one of those.

I also looked at the Minna no Nihongo books with lustful eyes, because we keep running into stuff from that in class. It’s tempting, but expensive. Maybe I’ll check Book-Off this weekend and see if I can find a used copy of MNN.

I stopped by Subway on the way out, then headed home.

It’s The End of the World. Or It’s Just Wednesday and We Feel Like It.

When I got back, something annoying happened. One thing that kind of irks me about living here is that I’ll randomly hear warning sirens– the same kind that you can hear on the tsunami videos– and I can’t tell if it’s police, fire, ambulance, or just Impending Doom. I heard them again this evening in my apartment, and quickly flipped on NHK, just to make sure I didn’t have to duck, cover, and kiss my butt goodbye. (You never know.)

Of course, as I flipped it on, they were showing a news show about how the tsunami warnings weren’t adequate enough, and in some places, told people that a 3m tsunami wave was coming, when in reality a 10m wave was coming, so people who should have fled, didn’t, and died as a result.

It was interesting, but I never could figure out what those sirens were about.

But I’m glad that they’re examining the whole tsunami warning system.

The discussion on the program about how to convey urgency to people was interesteig. Telling people éžé›£ã›ã‚ˆ (ã²ãªã‚“ã›ã‚ˆ hinanseyo “evacuate!”) instead of éžé›£ã—ã¦ãã ã•ã„ (ã²ã‚“ã—ã¦ãã ã•ã„ hinanshite kudasai “please evacuate”) conveys the proper urgency when a massive wall of water is about to obliterate everything. People may hesitate when they hear a more polite request to “please evactuate” (éžé›£ã—ã¦ãã ã•ã„) versus the more urgent and less formal “evacuate!” or “get out now!” (éžé›£ã›ã‚ˆï¼)

An Unfortunate Episode in my Life? How About an Exam That Keeps Me From Going to Kyoto?

In other news, it looks like no Kyoto trip this week. Next Thursday we have a conversation test and a composition test. We already have our themes to write about– “An unfortunate episode in my life.” Fun.

There’s no way I’ll be able to swan off to Kyoto for a weekend with that hanging over my head. Nagoya, maybe. But Kyoto? No way.

JBPP is really starting to pay off. All of the little lessons we’re learning are starting to accumulate, albeit slowly, in my brain. I realize I’ll probably have to go over all of this again by myself when I go home, but the info is amazingly useful.

We went over e-mails again today, and while it was difficult, I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of it. Tonight, I have to finish writing my resume in Japanese. Strangely enough, I’m not too stressed about it. It’s easier than doing it in English, because everyone uses the same general form.

Bow Like You Want to Get Hit on the Head

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Nov 082011

We had bowing practice in JBPP today. I kind of suck at it, so I’m sure I looked like a penguin with a nervous tic. The really tricky bit is the “bow while walking past someone in the hall” bow. The tricky bit is to do it without falling or walking into a wall.

My quick tip for bowing and not looking weird: Present the top of your head to the other person, so they can whack you on the head with a pretend big stick. That’s the polite way to bow. Don’t try to look them in the eyes, it’s creepy.

Also, men put their hands along their sides, while women cross their hands in front of them.

Sounds Like “Yes,” But It Means “No.”

I learned a new favorite phrase “ã§ãã‹ãã¾ã™” (deki kanemasu.) It’s a way of saying it’s not possible to do something without using a negative verb form. ã‹ãã¾ã™ (kanemasu) essentially means that something is impossible. So it’s rejecting someone’s request in the affirmative form of the verb, rather than the negative form of the verb.

I love that concept.

Of course, if something is ã‹ãã¾ã›ã‚“ (kanemasen), then that means it’s possible. In that case, the negative form can have a positive meaning. It all depends on what you’re talking about.

Saying Something By Saying Nothing

We also covered ã‚ã„ã¥ã¡ (aidzuchi), which are these great filler words that don’t mean anything at all. Sort of like “uh-huh, yeah, gotcha, ok, sure, ummm,” etc. ã‚ã„ã¥ã¡ are important in Japanese. In fact, just sitting there like a lump and sounding like a textbook makes you come across as, well, weird.

ã‚ã„ã¥ã¡ add a little natural feeling to your speaking style, so while it seems silly at first, it’s all social lubricant I’m learning, and social lubricant is important, regardless of culture.

I did pretty well with ã‚ã„ã¥ã¡ in class, so it turns out I’m an expert at saying nothing.

JBPP has been great at teaching me a lot of cultural stuff I never would have guessed at, but I still have a ways to go.

After class, I compared photos with K-san. K-san has done a much better job of photographing daily life in Japan than I have. She managed to find the fireworks on Sunday. I didn’t go out because it was raining. She is made of sterner stuff! I am made of water soluble components, apparently.

Puttering Around in the Rain

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Nov 062011

Today was another crappy weather Sunday in Okazaki. No plans to do much of anything, to be honest, except maybe shop for some groceries.

There were supposed to be fireworks tonight, but in this weather, I can’t imagine shooting anything off. Kind of a bummer, because I wanted to see some Japanese fireworks to see how they compare to the fireworks we get in the US.

Well, I needed to go by the bank, get some air in my bike tires, and take care of a little this-n-that.

If I’m honest with myself, a large part of my motivation is getting out of the house.

I stopped by the gas station (ã‚¬ã‚½ãƒªãƒ³ã‚¹ã‚¿ãƒ³ãƒ‰ gasorin sutando) on the way to Aeon Mall, and the guys there were kind enough to put some air in my bicycle for me. It’s like having a brand new bike. It went up those nasty hills like a dream.

My tires must have been flat or something.

Paying Cash is Painful, and Other Obvious Things

Then off to the post office by the mall for more money. Japan is expensive, especially with the high yen.

Cash economies are painful, but it makes me monitor my spending. If Japan wants to get out of its economic problems, just require every store to take credit cards, and require every citizen to have at least one, or five or six. That would fix that spending problem in a hurry.

Paying cash always hurts a little more than just handing over the card. (Maybe it’s because you get card back.)

Lost in the Mall Again

With plump tires, I headed over to Aeon mall. I stopped by the book store there for a couple of things: first, Kyoto/Nara travel guides. I want to find some prime leaf viewing areas. Next, I was looking for some good Japanese language study books. Not so much textbooks as reference books. I’m always looking for those. No luck. Finally, I’m always on the hunt for a decent book cover. No dice.

After that, I headed to Aeon, to pick up a couple of extra erasable pens and a couple of extra notebooks, because I tend to go through both quickly. I’m going to send any extras home, because I like the Japanese notebooks a lot.

Then I got lost in Aeon on the 1st floor again. There’s stuff and random shops everywhere inside the store, and I can never seem to get my bearings. Ugh. And it’s Sunday, so it’s jam-packed. I spent 15 minutes trying to find an exit. Scary.

When I finally found the exit to the mall, I headed to Subway. Yes, Subway. They have one right in Aeon Mall. And I was proud of myself, because I ordered a sub without any problems at all. A sub has a lot of parts to it, and I didn’t have any trouble rattling it all off in Japanese.

So if nothing else, spending all of this money on this trip will have taught me how to order food.

As I left, it started raining, so I punched out on the rest of my trip. Anything else I need, I’ll pick up after school tomorrow at Domy. I don’t like getting wet, and Japan is full of wet these days.

Tested!

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Nov 042011

Today was my first big test in the main class. There was a listening portion and a grammar portion, and it felt like a mini-JLPT. We had a lot of review coming into the test, and as I said earlier, I went so far as to start a grammar outline (just like I did in law school), but I don’t know how much it helped me.

I also found out about the bread truck lady who comes by on Fridays. She has a truck full of delicious bread, and she sells it out of the back of the truck around 11 am at Yamasa. I bought some sandwiches and some other sweet bread for dessert later on.

It was delicious.

I had a quiz in my N1 class, too. I’m doing pretty well in there, I think. It’s hard.

In JBPP we started to learn how to write Japanese resumes, or å±¥æ´æ›¸ (ã‚Šã‚Œãã—ã‚‡, rirekisho). It’s interesting to me, because there’s less messing around with the format like we have to do in the US. I think I prefer it to writing resumes for US firms, because I’m never sure how far I should go with my design. Then again, the Japanese resume format is pretty strict, but there are parts where you have to write statements about yourself where you can individualize things. I’ll probably have more to say about it when I have more experience with it.

My å¤– Becomes å†… When I’m Dealing With Another å¤– Group.

We also talked about å†… (ã†ã¡, uchi) and å¤– (ãã¨, soto). å†… is your in-group, be it your friends, family, or your company when you’re visiting another company. å¤– are the people not in your in-group. So for business purposes, your clients are å¤–, and are to be treated as people to be respected. So you use respectful language to them, and not only humble language about yourself, but also your in-group, or å†…, in this case your company. So while you might be polite to your boss when you’re in the office, you will use humble language when referring to the same boss when you’re confronted with a client.

We also learned about writing about the weather and the seasons. It’s big here, even in business letters/e-mail. You need to use the right phrase for the early part of November. One would not use the phrase for the end of November, I think. We got a list of all kinds of phrases to use.

Gettin’ Busy.

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Nov 022011

Classes are heating up. Things are getting more intense and busier, with full weeks of regular class, JBPP, and electives. We don’t get any holidays this quarter, either.

And I have my first big exam on Friday, which covers 3 chapters of the book. I’m already making a grammar outline. We’ve got a listening/dictation test as well. Fun.

I Found a Better Price, Now What?

So I found the same electronic dictionary I bought this past weekend for 10,000 yen less elsewhere, but I really don’t want to go through the hassle of returning it, then buying another one on the other side of Nagoya. Is there something I can do about it?

The answer is yes!

I got some really useful advice from V-san, one of my classmates. She said to take the electronic dictionary back to Bic, and tell them that I found it cheaper. She said they’re really good about matching competitors’ prices. I’ll have to give it a try this weekend.

We had phone practice in JBPP today. How to answer the phone, hold basic conversations, etc. It’s one thing to do it in everyday Japanese, but entirely something different to do it in business Japanese, with the emphasis on proper use of å°Šæ•¬èªž (ãã‚“ã‘ã„ã”, sonkeigo) and è¬™è²èªž (ã‘ã‚“ã˜ã‚‡ã†ã”, kenjogo.) There are lots of complex phrases to remember, which are essentially really polite versions of the same thing. But which degree of politeness you need to use is important to know.

Dumb Things in the Rain

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Oct 302011

It’s Sunday, and I didn’t do much today. I mostly rested. But in the evening, I started to go stir crazy.

So I decided to go to the 7-11 that I saw on Google maps which was apparently a 20 minute walk away. I usually go to Family Mart, because it’s closer, but I hear 7-11 has good salads, so I figured I’d go there.

This was a dumb idea.

I decided to walk there. Another dumb idea. In the rain. Really dumb idea.

I spent about an hour looking for a convenience store that didn’t exist, in the rain. I did find a Lawson a block up the street, but it didn’t have anything, as in, it had been completely cleared out of bentos.

I had no idea that that sort of thing was even possible in Japan.

I trudged to the Family Mart, which was full of good food as usual. I decided to go for a hamburger tonight, because I miss America. (Pun intended.)

I nuked it when I got home, and had it with some Pringles. It was actually pretty good when I added some mustard to it.

Okay, this wasn’t a meal that would win any nutrition awards, but it was the best I could do given that I spent an hour walking to get it.

And now that I’m writing about this, I’m getting hungry again. Ugh.

ä¸‡èƒ½æœãƒ¡ã‚¤ãƒ‰ (Bannou Fuku Meido.)

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Oct 272011

For the past few days after class and in the evenings, I’ve been working with my small group (with T and K… I know their names, but it would be rude to just post them) to prepare a presentation for class today. We had to come up with an idea for an invention, make visual aids, and then present it. In the presentation, we had to explain all of the many functions it had, and things it could do.

We also had to make sure to use the grammar points we’ve been studying in our presentations, and moreover, use them correctly.

So that meant a few meetings in Aoi Hall at various times of the day/night, when we were all free. K and I are both in JBPP, so we’re pretty busy on top of everything else.

I went by the local æ–‡æˆ¿å…·å±‹ã€€(ã¶ã‚“ã¼ã†ãã‚„, bunbouguya, or stationery store) to pick up some magic markers and cheap brush pens to work on the illustration. Might as well put my calligraphy skills to use!

Working on the presentation was pretty stressful, especially after we all got an email from M-sensei, telling us that we couldn’t use notes during our presentations… well, we weren’t supposed to, but if necessary, we could look down briefly, but it might affect our scores. Something like that.

Did I mention that my spoken Japanese is still bad? So this is a bit stressful for me, but I came here to learn how to do stuff like this. So it’s stressful, but educationally so.

It Does What?

We came up with the ä¸‡èƒ½æœãƒ¡ã‚¤ãƒ‰, which means it’s “The Mighty, All-Purpose Clothing Maid.” It’s a machine that will grant every laundry wish you may have, and maybe some you didn’t even know you had.

It is not a robot, because none of us could draw one.

Instead, it’s a big box that appears to consume your laundry, and dispense perfectly cleaned and folded clothes. (Or on a hangar if you want.) It’s powered by dreams. Dreams of not having to do laundry.

I’m sure it can even make you a cup of tea while chatting about the weather.

We each had to do a 3-minute presentation. K started, I came in the middle, explaining functions, and T made an incredible sales pitch at the end. His spoken Japanese skills are awfully good.

Still, 3 minutes can be an awfully long time.

I made it through without reading my notes too much, but I still have a way to go to get better at this.

That said, I’m already a lot better at speaking than when I first got here… but yeah, I’ve got a long way to go.

JBPP Stuff

We just finished working on ä»–ç¤¾è¨ªå•ã€€(ãŸã—ã‚ƒã»ã†ã‚‚ã‚“, tasha houmon, or visiting another company). There’s a lot of cultural “stuff” to remember.

For example, how early should you arrive? Five minutes is the generally-agreed on answer I got. It shows you’re not just punctual, you’re slightly early, but not too early, because that would inconvenience the people you’re visiting. So if you get there seven or nine minutes early, wait outside for a few, then go in as if you just got there.

Plates, Pens, and Tonkatsu. Must Be Aeon Mall!

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Oct 232011

It’s Sunday, and it’s time for more shopping. (Is this a shopping blog or something?)

Well, I went back to Aeon Mall to get some supplies and dinner as well.

First I went to Aeon, which, by the way, is a confusing store at first. When I enter the first level, it always take me a few minutes to figure out my bearings, because the first floor is part grocery store, part drug store, part department store, and Mr. Donut (which the kids call “MisuDo.”)

See what I mean? It’s confusing!

I grabbed the escalator, and made it to the second floor, then the third, where the kitchen stuff is. I needed a few bowls and plates, because I decided it would be slightly nicer than eating off of plastic wrappers and plastic trays.

Plates are civilized.

I bought some cheap ones, then headed over to get some ink for my Frixion pens, and some extra paper.

I like the Frixion pens, because they erase really easily. Everyone in class uses them, and swears by them. When you heat up the ink with the silicone eraser, the ink turns invisible. I guess the heat switches the dye off? Better not leave my notes on the dashboard of a car!

I’ll take my chances for now.

After that, I wandered around the mall a bit, and headed to the book store, Miraiyashoten. This time, I bought some Kyoto travel guides. I want to go when the leaves are nice and red! These magazines will hopefully show me the good sites.

I did a lot of browsing there. I could drop a large amount of money in a Japanese bookstore.

But I restrained myself this time.

I went down to the food court and started looking for a restaurant, since it was close to dinnertime. I found Saboten, which specializes in Tonkatsu, one of my favorite dishes. So I had a Tonkatsu set and a Coke, and chowed down. That was good stuff.

After dinner, I wobbled on home on my bike. I stopped off at the big main post office to get some money. Nice that’s it’s still open at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday. In the US, this is not a big deal. Here, it’s really nice. It’s so hard to tell if I’m going to be able to get money when I go to the post office. I suppose I should write the hours down somewhere, but that sounds too much like work. I’ve got plenty of that to do for class!

It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Raining. Also, Wingtown.

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Oct 222011

It’s Saturday, so that means it’s raining.

Like hell.

I wanted to go to Nagoya today, but I don’t want to drown on the way there. So instead I decided to wait out a break in the rain and bike to the other mall in Okazaki, which is south of where I live. It’s called Wingtown. It’s a couple of stories, but it’s a bit smaller than Aeon.

What it does have, though, is Imagine. And Imagine is a big book store and stationery/music/video/game store as well.

My kind of store!

Imagine is pretty handy if you’re a student at Yamasa, because it has a bunch of different stores all bunched into one.

One of my problems right now is dealing with the massive influx of printouts I get every day at Yamasa. The pages aren’t just A4 sized, they’re more like A3 or B2-sized. Imagine something you’d use as a paper place mat for a really messy kid. Now make it just a tad bigger.

Now what do you do with a pile of 50 of these that you need to keep organized so you can study?!?

For now, I’m going to try the “clear file” solution, which entails getting some A4-sized book-like things that have 20-40 clear pockets in them, and stuffing the sheets in the pockets, folded over. We’ll see how it works.

I also bought a new memory card for my PSP, so I can keep my JP and EN gaming separate. And of course I bought some books to read.

I’ve said it before, I know, but I’ll say it again, anyway. I love Japanese book stores.

When I was ready to head back, a frog-strangler of a thunderstorm popped out of nowhere. Real lightning and thunder, even! It was my first thunderstorm in Japan. With it raining so hard, it was impossible to go back home, so I hung out and waited for it to pass. It took a while, but eventually it cleared up enough so I could go home.

Now I’m going to do some reading!

Running to Nagoya Castle

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Oct 212011

Before I get to the Nagoya Castle trip, an update about classes at Yamasa. My elective classes started a few days ago, and I think they’ll be useful in getting ready for the JLPT N1. I couldn’t get into the writing class, which was a bit of a letdown, but having two extra grammar classes will be a lot of work, anyway.

So, on to the topic at hand. Cherry trees, their blossoms, and why I wanted to go to Nagoya today.

Sakura, Sakura, Do I Know You?

I have never seen a Cherry tree in bloom up close and personal. That’s mostly because I have never been to Washington, D.C. in Spring, nor have I ever been to Japan in Spring.

I suppose I could find them around North Carolina, but to me, most flowering trees look the same. Having grown up in the South, I know of two important spring flowering trees/shrubs: Dogwoods and Azaleas. Really, that’s it. Wisteria, I suppose I can recognize, too, but not much more than that.

So please excuse me if I can’t tell the difference between a cherry and a pear tree in bloom. It hasn’t been in my cultural wheelhouse.

There are times when cherry trees get confused, and bloom out of season. Sometimes when it happens, it makes the news. (Well, it does in Japan.) I’ve seen it twice on the NHK News. Once when some trees in Tohoku bloomed in September, and everyone took it as a sign of hope after the Tsunami, and I saw it again on Monday, when they ran a story about a cherry tree blooming near Nagoya Castle in the park on the grounds.

Since I have never seen such a thing in person, I wanted to go and see it up close.

A Tree Blooms In Nagoya… Right?

Class ended early on Friday, and afterwards, I immediately high-tailed it back to the apartment, grabbed the big, heavy camera (the 60D), and raced to the train station. The castle closes at 5 p.m., but they stop letting people in at about 4 p.m. or so. I got on the 3:00 train, which meant I was really under the gun to get there in time. I got to JR Nagoya at 3:30, then had to run to the subway, change trains, then run to the castle. I got there right at 3:50.

Lucky.

I did the castle tour, because I might as well. The Google reviews on Nagoya Castle are mixed, and for good reason. It’s kind of… plain, to be honest.

Going in:

An outbuilding near the main gate:

I saw some deer and crows chillin’ in the dry moat as I crossed to the main gate:

And here’s the castle, with attendant souvenir shop. (The building that says ãŠã¿ã‚„ã’ on it.)

The good thing about Osaka Castle is that when you get to the top, there’s an outdoor viewing area.

No such luck in Nagoya.

The top floor is enclosed, the windows are tiny, and they were very, very dirty. To top it off, the scenery wasn’t much to look at, either. It was kind of a disappointment.

Instead of crying over getting lemons, I decided to try to make lemonade. So I used the vantage point of the top of the castle to try to find the out-of-season cherry tree, but I didn’t have any luck.

There is a very large park with a lot of trees on the grounds of Nagoya Castle, and I suppose that that area is really pretty in Sping and Summer, so that’s probably worth checking out. It’s fall now, but there are no fall colors yet, so it’s kind of plain.

As I wandered around, I kept looking for the tree.

Here’s the back of the castle from outside the walls:

And this canal looked kind of cool. Lightroom helped pick out some details:

Another shot of the castle from behind:

One More:

A few shots from the top of the castle walls, overlooking the lake:

The Name of this Song is “Please Leave. Now.”

I walked all over the castle grounds, and just didn’t have any luck. Finally, I started to hear music, which could only mean one thing in Japan: “Get out.”

I asked a security guard or two if they had seen a blooming tree, and they told me to come back in March. Translation: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

On the way out, I stopped and took a look at some of the Chrysanthemums being prepared for the big exhibition tomorrow. They looked nice, but I didn’t feel like taking any pictures.

Right by the exit, I saw the mascot character. Of course I took a picture:

After that, I was starving, so I set out to get some food.

The first order of business was to find a post office ATM. Thanks to Google Maps, I found one about a kilometer away. Then it was back to the subway, and off to Nagoya Station.

OMG Noodles

I finally got back to the station, and headed up to the 11th floor, where there were a ton of people (because it’s Friday), and a ton of restaurants to choose from. Picking just one restaurant was difficult, because each one had so many delicious things to try.

I wandered around for about 15-20 minutes before settling on a soba shop. I had one of my favorite dishes, zaru soba, which is chilled soba noodles with a dipping sauce. You get a little pot of hot water to pour over the noodles to get them to unstick from each other, but I made the mistake of pouring too much hot water over it and made a mess. That’s one of the joys of travel: learning new ways to embarass yourself and generally make a mess of things.

But it was all good. The noodles went great with a beer.

Revived, I headed back to Okazaki.

The Flowers of Yamasa

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Oct 212011

Okay, I’m done with the sky.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been taking pictures of flowers, to see how the macro function works on the IXY. It’s pretty good. Not stunningly great, but better than a cell phone camera, and that’s all I can hope for.

So behold, the shy, dainty flowers of Yamasa. (Okay, some of them are weeds, but the still looked interesting to me, and it was something to do in-between classes!)

I like the detail on the left flower. The right flower is out of focus. A weak point of the IXY’s macro mode.

It’s a little head-on and bulls’-eyed, but I liked this flower. The IXY did a decent job, considering I was hand-holding the camera.

The IXY did a good job with this weed/plant, too.

And finally, a shot of the South Okazaki Hospital sign/top floor, with lots of power lines in the way:

Next up is a story about my trip to Nagoya Castle. Good times.

The Skies of Okazaki

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Oct 192011

In-between classes, I started messing around with my new Canon IXY. Mostly, I took pictures of the sky, because I saw some interesting stuff in it. Yesterday, I saw some neat looking contrails from jets going wherever they’re going. Today, I saw some beautiful shimmery clouds.

Oh, and I also took a photo of a goldenrod weed near the school. Just because.

The 10-minute breaks are welcome, but sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what I want to do for 10 minutes. It’s just enough time to realize it’s not enough.

And now, the photos:

The contrails looked cool, and had a kind of lonely feel to them:

Sideways shot!

Power lines interfere with a lot of my photography in Japan.

It’s annoying.

I liked the blue wall and yellow/green plant combination here. Just a weed near Yamasa.

I really like this shot. The sky was kind of shimmery, and Aoi Hall was its usual corrugated self. Makes an interesting shot. Thanks, Lightroom!

Now just the sky without Aoi Hall:

One more:

If you look at it the right way, doesn’t this look like a dragon’s head? Just a bit?

Mall-ed on a Saturday

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Oct 152011

I was going to go to Nagoya today for the big festival, but it was cancelled due to rain. They’ll just do everything tomorrow, when the weather is better.

I eventually started going stir crazy, so I went to the mall today for the first time since I came back to Okazaki.

I decided to walk, since it was raining off and on, and I didn’t want to mess with the bicycle.

On the way out, I was greeted by a somewhat unsettlingly large mass of birds near the apartments.

Then I headed to Aeon Mall. It takes a while to get there on foot.

When I got to the mall, I went by Aeon to buy some ink, paper, erasers, notebooks, and stuff like that. Then I wandered around a bit and checked out the bookstore. It’s big, but I couldn’t find what I wanted. (I’m always on the lookout for grammar or JLPT books.)

The mall has a huge selection of restaurants on the bottom floor. I’ll have to check some of those out when I have time… hey! A Subway! Okay, that’s pretty American of me to notice the Subway, but it’s been 2 weeks now since I’ve had anthing from my home country. Maybe next time I pass through here, I’ll pick up a sub.

I headed over to the bookstore on the way to the mall. It’s along the main highway. It’s small, but it has a pretty good manga section, and I was running out, so I reloaded on some new tankoubons to read.

Then back home to dry off.

On the way back, I saw this church:

Okay, it’s blurry, but it was kind of cool how the cross lit up the night.

Tomorrow it’s the Nagoya parades, weather permitting.

The Daily AIJP/JBPP Life

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Oct 132011

The way classes are taught here is interesting. It reminds me a bit of high school, but it’s much more thorough.

We have 3 50-minute periods of class in the mornings, from 9-9:50, 10-10:50, and 11-11:50. Then from 11:50-12:40, we have lunch. After that, from 12:40-1:30 we have the last AIJP class of the day. That’s followed by a 1:40-2:30 and 2:40-3:30 block each day for electives.

Oh yeah, we have to pick electives NOW. It’s more of a big deal for me because I missed a few days.

I’m probably going to go with only two, although I can do up to four. JBPP will fill in that last 2:40-3:30 block every day… except when it doesn’t. Sometimes we’re going to have long classes that go from 5th through 6th period, and sometimes we’ll have class during 5th period only, but that’s usually on Fridays.

It’s a little confusing.

Anyway, picking electives isn’t too hard. Because of JBPP I only have a few choices. There’s a writing class I want to try, as well as the N1 and N2 grammar classes. N2 will be good review of stuff I should already know, and N1 will hopefully cover stuff I desperately need to know. The main downside is that they only meet once a week up until the JLPT, then they end.

We’ll see where I wind up!

The way classes are done here in general is intense. We start off just about every class with a quiz, except JBPP. The first class in the day is usually taught by my homeroom teacher, M-sensei (different from the M-sensei in JBPP), who is amazingly nice. She teaches two blocks or so, which is grammar and vocabulary, then in the third block (usually, not always, the schedule changes every week, or so I’m told), another teacher will come in to teach stuff like speaking or reading or writing. Then after lunch, it’s either M-sensei or another mystery block of somethingoranother.

The class is impressively diverse. America, Germany, Greece, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Brazil, and India are all represented. I’m probably forgetting someone. I apologize.

But Japanese is our common language. It’s easier that way.

The cold is almost gone. I still feel a bit lousy, but it’s not nearly as bad.

JBPP: Can I Has Meishi Koukan PLZKTHX!

One of the most important things in Japanese business is ååˆºäº¤æ›ã€€(ã‚ã„ã—ã“ã†ã‹ã‚“, meishi koukan, or business card exchanging). It’s so important that it’s one of the first things we’re learning here. There’s an order to who offers their card first, and to whom, how it’s held out, how it’s received, what you say, and most importantly, where you put it.

The trick to understanding the whole thing from the Japanese side is understanding that business card = person. Once you understand that, many of the rules that seem kind of exacting make sense.

Also, understand that while visitors are treated as socially superior in a non-business setting, they’re not necessarily so in a business sense. If you’re coming to another company to ask for something, you need to show some humility, I guess. This is different from going into a store as a customer, because customers = gods in Japan. (Who else is going to spend money in their stores?)

Also, there’s the senior/junior dynamic as well. Seniority rules. Even if the boss isn’t going to do anything, if the boss is there, then the boss has to lead the ceremonies because s/he’s the boss.

The Basics

Ok, so the basics of meishi koukan are:

First, the order of who offers cards. (For this example, we’ll use a group of people visiting a company.)

Visiting company goes first. (You’re introducing yourselves, after all!)
Seniors first– company seniors, that is. So the most-senior visitor goes first, followed down the ranks to the most junior.
“Home” company goes last.
Again, the highest-level manager goes first.

Okay, that’s not too hard to remember.

So how do you do it?

Offer your card out with both hands, facing upside down to you. (So the other party can read it!) Don’t forget to bow as you’re holding it out.
Introduce yourself as you’re holding out your card, saying what company you’re from, who you are + douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu, or the proper polite variant.
The receiving person receives the card with both hands while bowing as well.
The receiving person takes the card and says arigatou gozaimasu or whatever variant is required due to politeness level required.
Receiving person has to look at the card and study it for a few seconds. Really, take the chance to learn the other person’s name, or ask them about the kanji in their name, etc. Great icebreaker.

Wait, there’s more! Remember, I said that a business card is considered the same as the person you’re dealing with, so a few “don’t”s are in order:

Don’t put it in your pocket! (Especially your back pocket!)
Don’t use it as a tool! (Especially to pick your teeth!)
Don’t write on it!

So we have these precious business cards… uh… what do we do with them?

Okay, now what? Where do we put the cards? The answer depends.

If it’s just meeting on the street, or at a convention, and there’s no meeting afterwards, then put them in a business card case. (You can get one for cheap at an office supply store if you need one.) You’re showing the other party how you value their card, and them at the same time.

If you don’t have your case on you, put it in your wallet. Don’t just shove it in a pocket.

It there’s a meeting afterwards, then lay them out on the table in front of you, like a little seating chart. It’s really useful that way, so you can keep everyone’s names straight. It also shows that you’re trying to learn their names. It’s very courteous to do it that way.

Anyway, you get the drift.

In the US, we use business cards like disposable ads. They’re tossed all over the place, and are only used to keep track of contact info. We write on them, pick our teeth with them, sit on them, you name it. We only see it as a piece of paper that’s handy to have every now and then… but not much more than that. (Hence the numerous goldfish bowls used to hold business cards for raffles.)

We spent a lot of time in class practicing business card exchanges, with a variety of scenarios. It was challenging at first, but I got used to it.

Still, there’s a lot of cultural stuff for me to learn just surrounding business, and we’re only at the point of exchanging business cards. I can see that I have my work cut out for me!

And So It Begins…

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Oct 122011

Finally! My real first day of class!

I still feel like hell, but my fever is gone, so I didn’t really have an excuse to stay home and lounge around. Besides, we’re on the fast track here at Yamasa. Every day I miss is like missing 3-4 days of Japanese at a univeristy. Keeping up is hard work.

I got a giant pile of printouts to work on from when I was sick and missed three days of class. I have no idea what to do with them.

I got my textbooks, too. They have zero useful information in them. I have better info in my Japanese grammar books. I think we’re using them for the readings? I don’t know. There’s a ton of information in the printouts, though.

It was a bit overwhelming for me, coming in sick and clueless. But everyone is kind and helpful, for which I am grateful.

Unmasked.

I tried to use a mask, but my classmates told me to give up on it. They didn’t care if I used it or not. So I bagged it. It was miserable, anyway. My glasses were completely fogged up, and it was difficult to breathe.

I had lunch at Domy (the nearby grocery store). At noon, everyone runs down the street there to buy something to eat. I headed to the bakery and got a sandwich and dessert. I went back to Aoi Hall on campus and bought a drink there, so I could quietly eat and feel miserable.

Then we had more classes.

The main part that sucks is that I missed those first few days to get to know my classmates. Of course, they all seem to know each other pretty well, because most of them have already been here for a while, so I’ll have to deal with that as well.

I already missed the first two days of the JBPP class due to my cold, so I have some catching up to do here as well. There are only four of us in the class, but it’ll be exciting. One of my classmates is in my main class. She’s from Singapore, and really nice.

The other two people are another American, and a guy from Malaysia, who speaks Japanese really well.

The class is team-taught by two teachers, I-sensei and M-sensei, who teach on alternate days. Today we had M-sensei, and we plunged right into introductions and keigo review.

I need lots of keigo review.

After class, I got some money out at the post office and got some food at the conbini. I’m too tired to cook. I’ve been buying a lot of conbini sandwiches. I’m not really getting the most out of my Japanese cuisine experience, am I? Oh well. Food is food, and the sandwiches are pretty cheap.

But I have a lot of scrambling to do to catch up in class.

Stupid cold.

Hospital, Part Deux.

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Oct 112011

No post for the last few days, because I’ve been too busy trying to keep my head from exploding.

It’s hard work.

I felt a bit like death warmed up this morning, only not quite so chipper. So I called in sick again, and decided to go to the hospital next to the school because I was getting a lot of rather strong suggestions to “go get it checked out.”

I thought it was just a cliche that Japanese people went to the doctor for minor colds. Nope. They actively encourage everyone to go, even for a cold. I’m not sure where this comes from. It’s a cold. I know it’s a cold. It’s a lousy cold, but it’s just a cold. There isn’t anything that the doctor can do for me. I know that, he knows that.

But I’m still going, because there’s this strong pressure I’m feeling from all of my teachers.

Also, if I miss more than two days of class, I need some kind of doctor’s note for the absences to be officially excused, in case I want to ever get a student visa. (Not that I do, I just don’t want to close any doors inadvertently.)

So I got on my bicycle, and headed down to the hospital.

Really, I thought this was a bad idea the whole time. Bicycling, in fall, with a cold. Sounds like a lovely recipe for pneumonia.

The Okazaki Hospital Shuffle

Since I’ve already done the whole Japanese hospital thing once before, I figured I would have some advantage, and I did, kind of. The hospital here, however, doesn’t really have as much in the way of English language help, so I was really on my own. Fortunately I’ve been using a lot of Japanese lately, and I had my electronic dictionary with me, so I didn’t have too much trouble getting through the forms.

One thing that saved me was having my address written in Japanese with me. I keep that on me at all times.

Really, the most difficult part was the waiting.

And understanding what everyone was saying.

And understanding what I was supposed to do.

When they told me to go into the exam area, I thought I was supposed to go into a room, so I accidentally walked in on someone. Oops. I didn’t know I was supposed to go from sitting on bench #2 to sitting on bench #3, like I did at Westminster.

Well, I know that now.

I finally got to meet the doctor, and in a mix of so-so English and Japanese, I communicated the problem, and he communicated that I had a cold…. which I already knew.

OMG PILLS!

Then he pulled out a folder full of pictures of pills, rapidly pointed to five or six of them, summarily told me what they were, and what they would do, and sent me on my merry way in under 5 minutes.

The exam was basically taking my temperature (they do it under the arm– eww), and looking at my throat (yep, it’s a throat). That was it. Oh, and the pill pointing. Then it was just a shove out the door to wait for the real pills.

Why did I even bother? I can be sick at home and just rest and not bother with bicycling down here and sitting around more sick people.

I did get one useful thing out of this trip. I learned how to use my digital TV remote.

Huh?

Remocon!

While I was waiting to see the doctor, they had a really useful show on the TV at the hospital. It was some of the most useful TV I’ve seen in a while.

It was a show all about how to use the new digital remote controls for Japanese TV.

In Japan, there’s not only HDTV, there’s enhanced HDTV with data.

Say I’m watching NHK-G, for example. (That’s the local over-the-air NHK channel.) I want to know what the weather’s going to be like, but I can’t be bothered to walk 5 feet to my computer, I’d have to lean over to grab my cell phone, and don’t even ask me to open a window or a door.

That’s no good.

If I press the “d” button on my remote, up pops a digital TV menu surrounding the current program. (The TV program shrinks into a little box. I can still watch! Yes!)

Now, using those mystery red, green, yellow, and blue buttons you see on a lot of remotes these days, I can navigate through the menus to find the weather report, or latest earthquake news, or whatever.

If I know the Japanese for it all. Hey, that learnin’ is coming in handy!

If I hook the TV up to the Internet, I can get even more info, but that involves buying more Ethernet cables. No thanks.

I was glad to at least get this info. This will save a lot of time, and it solves the mystery of the red, green, yellow, and blue buttons I keep seeing all over the place on remotes, even in the U.S.

Bag O’Pills

Anyway, I got my sack of mystery pills, and headed home to look them up. I wanted to see what he saddled me with.

For starters, there was an antibiotic that failed to get approval in the EU, and was withdrawn from the US. Fun. Then an antihistamine and something that vaguely resembles ibuprofen, but isn’t. Then something like Axid and another stomach medicine, because all of the pills will apparently kill my stomach. And, of course, and iodine gargle.

I didn’t take any of them.

Well, I took one of the antibiotics… but stopped. It just didn’t feel right.

I don’t get the whole idea of going to the doctor when you’ve got a cold. Just stay home, rest, push fluids, push vitamin C, get some chicken soup and other hot comfort foods, gargle ice water if your throat hurts and take plenty of anti-inflammatories. That’s the advice I got from my M.D. years ago, and I can’t find anything that works any better. Eating chilled oranges works pretty well, too. Cold meds if you need them.

Antibiotics are only good if you have a real infection going on. Not a viral one, a bacterial one that’s trying to eat part of your insides. A cold is just a virus. There’s nothing you can do about it. Just take some meds to relieve the symptoms, and watch whatever goes for “The Price Is Right” here.

On the way back home, I stopped by Domy (the grocery store) to pick up a few things, most importantly, some masks, so i don’t spread my disease to my classmates tomorrow.

…As A Dog.

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Oct 072011

Ugh. I think I caught a cold on one of my trips to Nagoya, because I’m so sick I can barely move, and I feel really gross.

They brew up some downright nasty colds here.

Sadly, I’m going to have to skip my first day of class, and be that mystery guy who doesn’t show up.

No mystery illness, just a really lousy cold.

I’m going to rest up now, and try to get better over the weekend.

We’re Not Through Orientating Yet!

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Oct 062011

More orientation today, and the å…¥å¦å¼ (nyuugakushiki, or school entrance ceremony.)

We got a lot of info about various things, what to do, what not to do, and we introduced ourselves in Japanese.

What I said before about this being the UN of Japanese Language Education? I’m serious. We have a bunch of different countries represented here. It’s very cool.

And of course everyone has to speak Japanese. Unlike most of the rest of the world, instead of English, Japanese is the lingua franca here, which is awesome for me, because I really need to get better at speaking it. Even if I’m just stumbling and fumbling trying to do aimless chit-chat with my classmates, even if they’re my Fellow Americans, I need to do it in Japanese.

How cool is that? (Okay, you may not think it’s cool, but I do.) I’m totally getting my money’s worth!

Then we had all of the formal introductions and attendant ceremonies that go along with a Japanese school entrance ceremony from the faculty and staff. It was educational. The folks here are really nice, and go out of their way to make you feel welcome.

When we were done, we could go to the main building (Yamasa II) and check the board to see what classes we were in. I’m in class 201, which means I’m somewhere in Yamasa’s intermediate level. That’s about right. My abilities are all over the place, so in the intermediate level classes, I can polish the stuff I’m weak at, and reinforce the stuff I already know.

It won’t be easy by any stretch.

I also had to pay a large amount of money for my rent for the next three months. That was painful, but still pretty cheap compared to living in other places… okay, none of them are really coming to mind.

Then again, I requested a single apartment with a bed, and those are the most expensive apartments. But I can’t do futons at all. They kill my back. There’s no way I could sleep on a futon for 3 months. So I consider part of my rent as “bed rental” and a “being left alone from an annoying roommate fee.” I’m totally okay with that.

If you want to go to Yamasa to study and you don’t mind communal living, and you can handle futons, you can save a fair amount of cash by staying in the dorms or in the older shared apartments.

JBPP or not JBPP?

I had an interview exam for the Japanese for Business and Professional Purposes program (JBPP) as well. One of the main reasons I wanted to study here was because I really want to work on my professional/business Japanese. I want to be able to roll those long, complicated sonkeigo and kenjogo phrases off of my tongue with no hesitation whatsoever.

And I want to make sure I don’t make an idiot out of myself in business situations.

So when I found out that Yamasa had a business-oriented program as well, I was stoked.

The interview test was kind of nerve-wracking, because I’ve already had an interview with S-sensei, who gave me the interview exam for the overall placement test. He knows how rough my spoken Japanese is at times. But he’s a good teacher, and a really nice guy.

He said that they’re going to let me participate in the JBPP. I’m relieved. It’s one of the main reasons I came here. If I couldn’t participate, I don’t know what I would have done.

I also got to meet my future JBPP classmates. There are only four of us, but everyone is nice, and way better at speaking than I am.

After all of that, I headed home.

Class starts tomorrow. Can’t wait!

Orientation and Okonomiyaki in Okazaki

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Oct 052011

Orientation at Yamasa started today.

We learned lots of things that don’t apply to me, because I’m on a short-term visa, and will be gone in 3 months. It’s kind of a bummer, but there you go. But there was a lot of really useful information, too, like what to do with my trash.

I’ve been hoarding trash for the last week or so, because frankly, I don’t know what to do with it.

Welcome to Japan! You Fail at Trash!

When I got first got into my apartment, I was checking all of the drawers, and in the file cabinet there was this thick brochure, and in it was this whole dissertation on how to sort trash about 800 different ways.

So I figured that’s what I had to do. I went to the nearest conbini, bought a bunch of trash bags, and went at it.

There are trash bags for all kinds of trash here. It’s mind-boggling. Each type of trash gets its own special bag. We only have the one sort of trash bag in the US, and we pick based on brand loyalty, size, application, and how much trash can it hold before exploding.

In Okazaki (I’ve been told it’s different in other places), ordinary people have to sort their trash into bags of burnable trash, paper, plastic, non-burnable trash, and PET (plastic) bottles.

But wait, you’re not done yet. That milk carton is made of paper, so you think it goes into the “paper” bag, right? Wrong! It gets cut open and flattened (after you wash it out and dry it, of course), then stacked and bundled with twine, and disposed of at the proper place. (Wherever that is.) Same goes for newspapers, glass bottles, cans, and a long list of other things you probably didn’t realize.

You think you can just hide it in the trash bag? HA! You fool! You have to write your address on all of your trash bags, and one of your neighbors (the Trash Shogun) will be checking your trash for “improper items,” and that person has the right to reject your trash.

Yes, in Japan your trash can fail to be proper trash.

And you can’t hope that they won’t see it, because the trash bags are clear. Fun, huh? Makes you think twice before throwing out a lot of stuff, doesn’t it?

So rather than try to actually throw out the trash, I panicked and just stuffed it under the sink in a lame attempt to sort it until I got orders on what to actually do with it.

After orientation, I learned something very important.

I don’t need all of those bags.

Luckily, our apartment complex just has two blue dumpsters, one marked “burnable trash,” and the other marked “nonburnable trash.” At orientation, I learned that I just have to keep two little trash bags, and I can just use any old bags I want.

I don’t even have to write my address on them.

Thank God.

Recycling Back Home

Still, I miss the way we do it Back Home. How do we do it there? Simple: most recyclables go in the blue box everyone gets. Put the blue box outside on your designated day, and a truck comes and picks it up. Usually. When they feel like it.

Vegetables and other kitchen waste can be ground up in the garbage disposal and handled as raw sewage, or you can compost it, or just toss it in the trash. Bulky stuff, like electronics and the like, needs to go to a recycling center run by the county. Hazardous stuff goes to a special center. Not a big deal.

I learned a lot of other useful stuff, too. There’s a grocery store just down the street from the school. Woot. My lunch problem is solved!

I also got a ZigZag coupon. Yay. I hope I can get some beer with it!

After orientation, I went with a group of fellow students to a local restaurant that sells okonmiyaki. It used to be the kaiten-zushi shop, I went to four years ago, I think.

It was pouring rain, so when we got there, we were soaked.

The United Nations of Japanese Language Education

Yamasa does a really good job of mixing up the student body. It’s not just a bunch of Chinese or Korean students with the odd American. There are folks from all over the world here, not just Asia.

The group that went to the restaurant was a good mix. There was a guy from Switzerland, and a woman from Israel. And of course a couple of Americans, and some folks from other places, too. I can’t remember them all, but it was a good mix of people.

Then I went home, dried off, watched some TV and went to bed. Gotta get up early for class.

Nagoya Again!

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Oct 042011

I decided to head to Nagoya one more time today, to pick up some odds and ends.

Before leaving town, I stopped by the Post Office to take out some money. The postal ATMs are a great deal. There are no fees, other than whatever your bank charges, and there’s English support if you need it. I don’t usually need the English help, but it’s nice to have for those “not-so-proficient” days.

When I parked my bike at the massive bicycle parking lot at the station, I had a brilliant idea:

I would photograph where I parked it, so I wouldn’t forget!

Ok, that’s kind of sad.

Anyway, I headed to the platform, and waited. While I was waiting for the train at JR Okazaki, I took a few photos:

Yes, I like train-related stuff. I’m not obsessive about it, but I like it. I think I like the industrial charm of it.

Around here is where you wait if you want to get in the first car.

I’m in the Front Row!

Lately, I’ve been riding in the front of the train, because I can look out through the front window. The downside is that I can’t sit down, but I do enough sitting as it is.

This time, I took some photos from the front of the train:

It’s a little loud when trains pass each other. It’s also startling when I’m just dozing off in a seat like everyone else. When I see them coming, it’s not quite as surprising, but it’s still impressive, when you start thinking about the sheer mass of these things.

Aichi Prefecture, from the special limited express to Nagoya!

Wait, You Can Read This Stuff?

When I got to JR Nagoya, I decided to go to Junkudo, a book store chain a few blocks away.

But on my way out the station, I took a little detourÂ and wandered a bit, and found this building:

It had this really cool vent thing:

Then I headed back towards the station:

And saw this:

Which almost made me dizzy, then I went back towards Junkudo.

I spent a good hour or so in there, looking for JLPT books, but didn’t have much luck. They have some grammar books, but nothing really overwhelming.

While I was prowling, a woman asked me in halting English, “You can read these books? They’re all in Japanese, you know.” I explained that I knew that, and could read them just fine. (Okay, I can read them just fine as long as I have a dictionary with me for the odd word. Still, I don’t see the problemÂ here. )

I tried very hard to be distant, but polite.

But really, if I pulled that on you in the US, you’d probably sue me. And with good reason. The question implies: 1) I’m too stupid to know where I am, 2) I’m too stupid to know the difference between Japanese and English, and 3) I’m too stupid to read Japanese.

Any way you slice it, I come out looking stupid in that woman’s eyes, and I hate that sort of thing.

After being insulted based on ill-informed stereotypes, I went back to shopping.

I bought a couple of Nagoya city guides and an Aichi Prefecture guide, so I can maybe find some fun places to go in my spare time.

It depends on how much of that I’m going to have, though.

And since they’re filled with pretty pictures, I won’t need to decipher the strange symbols plastered all over them in some mysterious language. (Here’s where I roll my eyes.)

That XL Isn’t As X Or L As You Think

I headed back to JR Nagoya, by way of the underground mall that stretches out all over the place. It’s pretty neat. I found the North Face store there, which was one of my targets for the day.

I have discovered that I’m short on shirts. I packed too little, and probably too lightly. For now, I can alternate between short and long sleeves, but the nights are already getting cooler. I want something with long sleeves now, so I don’t suffer later.

Also I just need another T-shirt, because I’m doing laundry all the time.

The guy at the store was really nice, and explained to me that unfortunately, Japan’s XL isn’t close to America’s XL. But I decided to take a chance on it anyway, because I really need an extra shirt.

What I really needed was a Japanese XXL or something like that, I guess. It’s a bit tight in the chest. I suppose I have a goal, huh?

What Do You Call a Coin Purse In Japanese?

My last objective for the day was to find a coin purse. Most red-blooded American Men would not be caught dead with such a thing. We just let coins accumulate in our pockets, then dump them in the cupholders in our cars. Generally, we don’t carry change, because it slows up the line. All that counting and counting… and then the clerk has to recount it. Agh! Just hand the clerk a twenty and be done with it!

I digress.

Unfortunately for my manly American self-image, I need a coin purse, because 100 yen and 500 yen coins exist. I can’t really shove them in my wallet, and I hate having a pound of change just floating loose in my pocket.

Most importantly, I don’t have a car, let alone a cupholder to dump it all in.

So I need a coin purse.

I started looking around Takashimaya… okay, that was a mistake. The cheapest ones were 4000 yen. That’s a lot of money for something to hold my change with. And I didn’t even like the way they felt.

So I went to Tokyu Hands.

It took me a while to find them, but I found them. I picked one in a nasty orange-yellow color, so I can find it easily, and it won’t be mistaken as someone else’s. 777 yen. Much better.

I suppose I could have used a Ziploc bag, but even for me, that would be a bit much. Also, Ziploc bags eventually tear. I wouldn’t want that to happen to my bag o’change.

One last shopping trip to the kitchen section, to purchase something to make coffee with, and a mug with the Japanese names of vegetables on it. I wanted the one with the fish kanji, but I couldn’t find it. Oh well.

Then it was back home to Okazaki for some conbini dinner before going to bed.

We have orientation tomorrow, so maybe I’ll learn how to do trash?

It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.

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Oct 012011

It’s Saturday. No classes, and it’s beautiful outside. So I went to Nagoya to do some shopping for some much-needed necessities.

No photos on this trip, because I didn’t take my SLR with me. It was too heavy to carry around while I went shopping.

I needed to buy sheets, a wireless router, and after lugging my big digital SLR camera around Tokyo, I decided to find something small and cheap to take pictures with. My Nexus One is a good smartphone, but it’s a terrible camera.

I hopped on my bike and headed to JR Okazaki, and grabbed a train to Nagoya. That’s about 680 yen each way. Ouch. So I’ll be down ~$18 just on train fare each time I want to go to Nagoya. I wish the yen wasn’t so strong these days.

It’s Saturday, so everything was crowded.

JR Nagoya is one of my favorite places, because it’s full of all kinds of neat stores, and there are a ton of restaurants here, mostly on the 11th and 12th floors.

But I didn’t come here to eat, I came to get a router, sheets, and some kitchen supplies.

Sensory Overload

First, I got my bearings. For some reason, I always get turned around at JR Nagoya. After I figured out where I was, and where I wanted to go, I went out through the West Exit, crossed the street, and went into Bic Camera, one of my favorite electronic chain stores. (I’ve mentioned this before.)

The thing about Bic Camera is that for someone not used to it, you can experience sensory overload. There’s a crush of people trying to get in and out at the same time, there’s a guy yelling indecipherable stuff into a megaphone trying to sell you something you donâ€™t need, there’s music playing the store’s jingle at repeated intervals, and of course, there’s electronics piled high and in your face with strange writing all over them. (Well, the level of strangeness is proportionate to how much you study, I guess.)

I love it.

Bic Camera is one of my favorite places to shop for electronics. I don’t always buy there, but I love to shop there.

The first trip is always a bit stunning, in the “hit in a head with a heavy blunt object” kind of way, but once I got over the initial shock, I was okay.

First off, I looked for a router. The salesperson steered me to the cheapest one, since I’m only going to need it for 3 months. I also grabbed a power strip, because I have so many electronics vying for limited outlet space that I thought I’ll need it.

Then I headed down into the basement, where there are row up on row of cameras to try out.

If it’s currently made in Japan and takes pictures, you’ll find it in Bic Cameraâ€™s basement. I spent a good hour or so checking them all out and agonizing over each one. I got some help (in Japanese) from the sales staff, but in the end, it was my decision.

I wound up with a cheap but not dirt-cheap Canon IXY, which is the same as the ELPH in the US. It cost around 13,000 yen. I wanted to spend a little less, but I think the IXY was a good trade-off for price/performance.

I need something I can stuff in my pocket and pull out for those “Oh, that’s unexpected. I want a shot of that!” moments, and I don’t want to have to worry about having a giant SLR to deal with for those kinds of things. The IXY isn’t the smallest or thinnest, but it’s cheap and takes pretty good pictures, and that’s all I need.

I headed back to JR Nagoya for part two of my excursion.

Oh Sheet

Now it was time to get some housewares, and the best place for that is… huh. I don’t know. So I went to Takeshimaya, a big department store chain in Japan, which has a store in JR Nagoya, and I started looking around for sheets and blankets.

I went up about eight or nine floors on the escalator to the linens department.

Yeah, it’s a big store.

Unfortunately, I found out that although I’d measured my bed, the measurements didn’t mean anything, because the numbers I kept repeating to her just didn’t seem to match anything she had in stock. She said I probably had a single, but she wasn’t sure. (Of course, I didn’t use the best measuring stick in the world. I used a sheet of paper and a calculator.)

Frankly, the other problem I was having with Takashimaya was the price. I just wanted the Japanese equivalent of a $10 Wal-Mart/Target bottom sheet, and she was pulling out some fancy stuff. I don’t mind getting it wrong on a $10 sheet, but I mind if it’s a $50 sheet. Yikes.

Knives and Forks and Spoons, Oh My!

Having failed at bedding, I took a look at the kitchen section at Takashimaya, and it was nice, but a bit ritzy for my taste as well. Since Tokyu Hands was sharing floor space with part of Takashimaya, I started nosing around there a bit.

They had the kitchen knife I wanted, but I couldn’t get any help. It was in a case, and nobody was coming by. Not even close.

I decided to come back and went up to look for sheets– oh, hey, stationery and calligraphy supplies! No, must go look for sheets.

After a bit of digging, I found a sheet that was cheap and “good enough,” then went back to the kitchen section to try again. This time, I got someone to help with a nice ceramic santoku for all-purpose cutting, and a pair of kitchen shears. When all else fails, kitchen shears can probably handle it. A true multi-tasker.

I also grabbed some stuff like a small cutting board (with happy vegetables on it), a decent pan, some chopsticks, one setting of cheap silverware– you know, the stuff you don’t really know you need until you don’t have it handy.

After all of that, I headed back home, because I was carrying a ton of stuff.

Getting it back on the train wasn’t too great, but once I got to my bike, the last bit wasn’t so bad.

Now I’m going to enjoy some Japanese TV with my conbini dinner.

Getting Used to Apartment Life

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Sep 302011

More classes today. I have a lot of gaps to fill in in my Japanese. Today I have my private lessons, then I’ll probably go to Nagoya to do some shopping. I need to get a wireless router and some kitchen supplies, as well as some sheets ASAP. Those are all top priorities.

I’m getting used to the apartment. I like it a lot. It has some nice features, which I’ll go into some other time.

Shopping List

My B-Mobile data-only SIM card ate about 100 MB of data since I got it in Tokyo, and that’s too much, too fast. I want this to last the whole time I’m here, so I need to pick up a WiFi router to slow down the data drain.

My tablet is also kind of useless without a wireless internet connection. It’s not completely useless, but it’s about half as useful. So I better get a router.

My kitchen comes with a rice cooker (but it’s tiny), a few pots and pans (the “non-stick” pan isn’t very much of one), a toaster oven, a microwave that doubles as a tiny oven, a fridge, and that’s about it for the kitchen. The rest is pretty much up to me.

So I need to go buy a few things to make my life easier for the next few months. I suppose I can just live out of the conbini… but I’d rather make an attempt at not doing that.

Pillow Talk

Something else I found out is that Japanese beds don’t have the same sizes as US beds do, so the sheets I brought don’t fit. It’s like a fat twin or a skinny double, so my US twin-size sheets are too narrow to fit this bed.

That’s something else to buy.

I brought my own pillow with me. I know I sound like an 8-year-old, but I have a favorite foam pillow. It collapses nicely and fits into a Space Bag. I also brought a blanket, so I can just “camp out” on top of the bed for now. Not a huge deal, but I kind of want a bottom sheet at the very least.

That’s it for now. Gotta jet.

Back in Okazaki!

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Sep 292011

Today I made it back to Okazaki and Yamasa again.

I got up early, and grabbed a shinkansen, the Nozomi from Tokyo to Nagoya.

I could have grabbed it in Shinagawa, which would have made more sense, but I know the way to Tokyo Station better, and I didn’t want to get lost and miss my train.

For those of you who don’t know, there are 3 kinds of shinkansen (what we Americans call “bullet trains”) that run on the Tokaido Line from Tokyo to Nagoya, and on to Osaka and points further West.

First, there’s the Kodama. It stops just about everywhere. It’s fast in that it’s faster than an ordinary train, but it’s slow, because it stops a lot. It’s handy if you live in a biggish small town, but it’s not the way to get anywhere really big in a hurry.

Next there’s the Hikari, which stops at fewer places, and is a lot faster. (And more expensive.) This is the train you take if you’re using a JR pass, or if you’re on a budget.

Then there’s the Nozomi, which is just a rocket on rails. It barely stops for anything, and I think it goes around 270-300 Km/h or so. I know that I got from Tokyo to Nagoya in about a little less than 2 hours. The downside is that it’s not cheap.

Another downside: you can’t use it for free if you’re on a JR pass.

Arriving in Nagoya, With Just Enough Time to Change Trains

I grabbed a Nozomi to Nagoya, and got there in a jiffy, then grabbed a variant of a limited express to Okazaki. That bit took about 30 minutes or so.

I was feeling adventurous, so I rode in the front of the train and watched out the front of the car. I don’t know why, but I like to do that.

It’s interesting to watch all of the hand gestures that the engineers, conductors, and construction workers use. I saw something about that on TV a while back. Apparently, it improves safety if you force your employees to confirm each action they’re supposed to take with a specific hand gesture. As long as I get there safely, I’m all for it. It doesn’t look silly if it saves lives.

I got to Okazaki at around 11:50, and got picked up with my 2 monstrous suitcases and was whisked over to the school. It’s a pretty short walk from the station if you’re not carrying 100 lbs of luggage, but add the luggage, and the distance suddenly seems much bigger.

Since everyone was at lunch, I had to wait a while. Bad timing on my part. Fortunately, there were a few people hanging around in the Customer Service department who could take care of me and get me processed. We got my room sorted out (Villa 5, yay!), and then I got a ride to my new digs.

I Get to Stay Here? Really?

As far as temporary apartments go, this one is very nice. It’s a studio-style apartment that’s been very recently built. It’s Japanese-style, but with a bed. (Thank God.) I love Japan, but I can’t handle futons. Last time I was here, I had excruciating futon-induced back spasms. Thankfully, there are some apartments here with western-style beds.

It was also built to take a magnitude 8.5 earthquake. That’s reassuring.

After a few minutes to unload and freshen up, it was back to campus for my first private lesson at 1:40, followed by a CALL seminar at 2:40. It was challenging and a fun to get back in the saddle, as it were.

By then, I was pretty much starving. I staggered over to the Mini Stop to get some food, then spent the rest of the day figuring out the apartment.

Going Back to Okazaki.

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Aug 162011

I mentioned earlier that I was dissatisfied with the way my Japanese was progressing when I took the JLPT N2 last month. After talking to Michele, I realized that I have completely neglected my spoken/written Japanese in order to prepare for the N2, which tests neither skill.

I considered my options seriously, and realized that if I want to work in Japan, just having N2 (if I pass it) isn’t enough.

I need better Japanese communication skills.

When I went to Yamasa in 2007, I got a huge boost to my language ability in just 2 weeks’ time. I’m hoping that 3 months can make for a massive turnaround. So I’ll be back in Okazaki in a few weeks’ time, soaking up as much knowledge as is humanly possible.

And trying not to use English.

I’m just a little bit nervous, but mostly excited. I want to get better!

Sayonara, Okazaki; Konbanwa, Kyoto!

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Oct 262007

I’m back in Kyoto, safely out of Okazaki now, although I kind of miss Okazaki.

The Sky Is Crying Way Too Much

I’m so happy to finally be dry. Why is it whenever I go to Kyoto, it rains? (Does two trips count enough for a “whenever?”)

It started this morning, during “The TP incident,” and stopped right before class. Thinking that the rain had ended for good today, I rode my bike for the last time to class, made it through class, and when it was over, I was greeted by a total downpour.

I went to the school office to pay my boarding fees– 40,000 yen for two weeks lodging is awesome in my opinion. But for some reason, it wouldn’t take my BofA card again.Â Luckily, it took one of my other cards, but I was irked.

Then it was off to Nonoyama Bicycles to return the rental bike with the somewhat embarrassing helmet, in what had become a driving rainstorm.

Here’s a shot of the helmet from earlier in the trip:

I learned something else important today: it’s next to impossible to ride a bicycle and use an umbrella at the same time. For me, anyway. I wound up walking the bike there. Either way it didn’t matter, because I got soaked.

Fun.

After I turned the bike in, I went back to the dorm by taxi. It took some explaining to get the driver to understand where the Student Village was. Don’t assume that cabdrivers will somehow “know” where everything is.

While my pants dried, I wasted 30-minutes in a pointless attempt to get some useful info out of BofA.That was 30 Euros down the toilet, by the way. Ouch.

Really, be careful what you use to dial out.

Anyway, the time to get out was fast approaching.

One strange thing about the clothes dryers in the dorm: there was a lint tube leading up from the dryer, but then it stopped short, and just sort of aimed at a vent in the ceiling. I guess the last few inches were covered by hope, faith, and good intentions? I’m not sure how the engineering behind that works.

Leaving Okazaki

I spent 30 minutes in the rain waiting for the bus, gave up and wound up lugging the suitcase and backpack to the station. By the way, lugging 8,000 lbs. of crap around in the driving rain is an excellent argument for traveling as light as humanly possible.

And one day, I might actually do that.

When I got to Nagoya, I had my last meal at the Mermaid Cafe. Then I grabbed a shinkansen to Kyoto.

I’m now in the Comfort Inn Kyoto. Yes, there are Comfort Inns in Japan. The rooms are pretty nice, too. Tiny as hell, but still a lot nicer than the last hotel I stayed in, and cheaper, too. I even get the BBC in English. (Yay! English!) But it is the BBC, so it’s all very depressing.

Overall, I have to say my Japanese has improved quite a bit. So far just about everyone has forced me to speak Japanese. I keep hearing stories about people coming up to foreigners and talking English to them, but I’ve only had that happen once so far.

I’m no Yan-san yet, but I’m trying.Â In case you’re not familiar, Yan-san is a chunky foreign guy who teaches us foreigners how to speak Japanese properly in a very cheesy and sappy set of Educational Videos from the mid-1980s, when everyone was trying to teach their kids Japanese.

Now everyone is desperately cramming Chinese down their kids’ throats.

I’m actually a big fan of the Yan-san videos. I always thought they were great, because it was like watching a drama series.

But I digress.

Kyoto Plans

There’s a typhoon offshore, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to do much here. It’s going to rain a bit on Tokyo, but that doesn’t matter to me here in Kyoto.

Unless the weather does something rude tomorrow, I’ll visit some shrines/temples or Arashiyama. Sunday I’d like to try to see the Heavenly Bridge, but I’m not sure how long it would take, and I don’t want to spend a whole day on it.

Monday I head to Nara to my spa hotel. I can’t wait. Tuesday & Wednesday nights are in Hiroshima. Maybe Thursday in Beppu. If I can get my suitcase weight reduced significantly, then I’ll do it. Otherwise, I’ll spend three days in Osaka.

Not much else to report. I get to watch Japanese TV again, so I get to see just how weird it is. (And it is weird.)

The Stupidest Thing I Ever Did… For Today, Anyway

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Oct 262007

Well, I have a new Stupidest Thing I’ve Done So Far in Japan. And it’s up there with other Great Stupid Things I’ve Done.

I brought some U.S. toilet paper with me because, well, let’s just say that me and Japanese toilet paper haven’t been getting along very well. In general, the stuff I’ve been running into hasn’t been meeting my needs.

I had just finished in the shower, and I didn’t want to be seen lugging around a giant roll of toilet paper. So I stuck it in my pile of clothes I had changed out of after my shower.

And then I promptly dumped it all on my laundry pile, which I then went and washed.

…

I opened the washer, and noticed that a my black shirt and pants were covered in white fuzz, and I started to get mad. I thought that my new Japanese underwear had done that. So I tried to shake stuff around to get the fuzz off (succeeded with most, failed utterly with my black pants), then threw it all in the dryer.

I had to go the bathroom, so I went to grab my toilet paper, and it wasn’t there. I looked around for a minute or two, until I realized exactly what I had done.

Then I had that moment. The one where Scooby and I solve the mystery, only it turns out I did it.

Yeah, I put the roll in with the wash.

What’s amazing in a way is that the roll completely disappeared, save for the fuzz on my black pants.

That’s kind of impressive.

But still dumb as hell.

Touring Around Okazaki

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Oct 252007

Fun day today. I got back on the ol’ Buttbuster 9000 and did some touring around Okazaki. I’m going to miss that bike… okay, no, not really.

I managed to send about 20 lbs. worth of stuff home for only about $60. Fortunately, it’s all stuff I won’t need for the next 8-10 weeks, because that’s how long surface mail takes.

Sending stuff from Japan is so much easier than the US. The customs form is built into the giant address label you fill out.

I stopped by a book store. I’ve been trying to find the Doraemon Kanji Dictionary, but with no luck in Okazaki. I guess I’ll have to try again in Kyoto or Tokyo.

To explain briefly, Doraemon is a cartoon robot space cat from the future with no ears, and kind of reminds me of Stimpy from “Ren n’ Stimpy,” except Doraemon is actually sort of smart. He gets involved in wacky scenarios trying to save a useless boy from his own stupidity and sloth.

I want the dictionary for various reasons, but there is an actual educational purpose in it… well, okay, the real reason is that it seems that everyone at Yamasa has this dictionary, and everyone says that it’s useful. My curiosity has been piqued.

If I can find it cheap somewhere, I’ll grab a copy.

I managed to get a room in Hiroshima for the 30th and the 31st. I want to visit the Peace Museum and then visit the islands outside of Hiroshima. I haven’t been able to get a room in Nara yet, but I’m not too worried.

I keep forgetting to take pictures of the restaurant that serves suppon, or snapping turtle. I think it’s around 5,000 yen for one snapping turtle meal. I guess it’s one of those “It’s a delicacy” things? I think I heard somewhere that certain bits are an aphrodisiac (why else would anyone eat a turtle?)

Those Aren’t Churches

After class, I did some more bike touring, and I saw this row of these huge churches… that aren’t churches at all. They’re wedding halls. Apparently they love church-like buildings for weddings here. It was too dark to get a picture off, and I was kind of distracted. Trying to stay on that bike is hard enough with two hands.

I also went and bought some underwear. They even have foreigner sizes now. I guess the Japanese are starting to get a little chunky like the rest of us, huh? The people at the store were very nice, they even offered me a point card, but I don’t think I’ll need it.

I almost forgot the best part of underwear shopping: Sissy underwear for men. Yes, that’s the brand name. Sissy. Yeah, wear those to school in the States, I dare you. Yikes.

Then I went to the local Book-off.Â (A used book store chain.) It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out how to find books in bookstores… sort of? It’s hard, because my kanji is still too weak to find some of the trickier names. I probably don’t need to be buying books yet anyway. I’d just load up and then have to lug them all over the country.

All I Do Is Sleep and Eat…

Nearby was Kappa Sushi, which has 105 yen/plate sushi. There are these rows and rows of conveyor belts, with a bar on one side, and booths on the other, and there are 4-5 rows like that. Then there’s a little call box at the table, and you press the button and order stuff if you need beer or tea or something not on the conveyor belt. I got out of there for 840 yen. Not bad. I had a juice box of “Hello Kitty Apple Juice.” Not by choice. I just didn’t feel like tea or beer.

I went back to the dorm and napped for a bit, then went to Zig Zag later in the evening for my last trip there. I’m going to miss this place. I know I had some difficulties at first, but it has really started to grow on me. Maybe I can come back again sometime and work on my Japanese some more. I think I’d like that.

Tomorrow is going to be nuts. I have to check out, return the bike, pack, and get to Kyoto. Oh, and I still have classes, too.

I should have Internet in Kyoto, so if I get some downtime, I’ll try to upload more pictures.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Bells, the Bells! (Because “The Chimes!” Sounds Lame)

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Oct 242007

Okazaki Castle happens to be too far away for me to get to today.

But at least I have a way to show you where I am on an interactive map. (It’s in Japanese, but a map is a map.)

http://tinyurl.com/3d6cgv

There’s a zoom-scale-slider-thing at the bottom of the map, to change it from 500m to up to 250 km.

I’m just to the right of the red cross hair on the map.

That green thing above is a high school, and I can hear the class chimes from the school all day long. It’s kind of like being back in school again. Fortunately, I haven’t had the recurring dream where I have an exam in the class I haven’t attended all semester long.

More of My Commute to Yamasa

I took a few pictures of my daily commute to and from Yamasa’s main campus from the dorm. I put some of those photos on yesterday’s post. (About my daily dance with death.)

Here are a few extras:

I go by the coffee shop every day.

I like the lettering on their signs.

Be careful not to step on the covered gutters. Those covers move. Here’s a closeup of one of the Yamasa apartment buildings, you can almost make out the dorm in the back. It’s peeping over that wall.

A cemetery on the way:

In the distance, you can see big new apartment buildings going up. Okazaki is growing fast because Toyota is close by.

I’m getting close to 248, the main road.

And here is the Daiso, a 100-yen shop. They’re like dollar stores in the U.S.:

There are a few of these tunnels that go under route 248. Here’s the tunnel itself:

Once I cross 248, the wall protecting me from traffic disappears. So does the sidewalk. The building with the red letters is the South Okazaki Hospital:

As I get to Yamasa, here’s a photo of one of the classroom buildings and the coffee shop/Japanese-style restaurant:

Looking to the other side, here’s the main classroom and administration building, Yamasa II. I don’t know if there’s a Yamasa I:

And here’s the place where I took my classes, the Info Gallery:

Later that day, on the way back to the dorm, I spied this Caution sign on the pole of a Stop sign. I really liked the way the white bits were cracking:

And here’s the entrance to the dorm, to the right of the laundromat, which is right next to the convenience store:

And here’s the Mini Stop convenience store, without which I probably would have starved to death:

The Donkey Was Surprised, and so Was I

I went to Bikkuri Donkey tonight for dinner, because translated it means “Surprise! Donkey!”

I learned an important lesson today. Don’t go to a restaurant just because it has the word “Donkey” in its name.

I couldn’t get into the hambugu. It’s ground beef mixed with some other stuff, shaped into a patty-like form, fried in a pan, then dumped on a plate with some sauce.

Note that this is not hamburger, which comes on a bun and tastes entirely different.

Hambugu yields easily to chopsticks, which was also a source of dismay. I come from the Land of Meat. In the Land of Meat, we have special knives for eating Meat, and these knives are sharp. The meat we eat usually does not require much more than salt and pepper to be tasty. This dish had far more than 11 herbs and spices in it, and I could barely taste the meat.

Japanese famires (short for family restaurant) cuisine so far has been less than satisfying. I’ve tried 2 different kinds, and so far, I’m 0 for 2.

It’s Log, It’s Log, It’s Big, It’s Heavy, It’s Wood!

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Oct 232007

Something I saw yesterday that I forgot to mention– I was walking by the local high school, and it sits on top of a pretty steep hill. Well, I saw the baseball team out there, in their uniforms, acting lively and cheering, while someone was blowing a whistle. Intrigued, I looked as I passed by, and I swear I saw something right out of a sports manga, or a Jackie Chan movie– the players were doing a drill where they had to run up the hill, each one carrying a log.

Here’s where I saw them running:

Yes, log. All kids love log. Log will even make you a great baseball player!

Everyone is trying to find an edge. Here, the edge is log!

Come to think of it, logs are probably cheaper than a room full of weights. And instead of managing problem athletes, you can just hit them with Log until the problems go away.

After the Kvetching, that Nostalgic Feeling Grows

Today was pretty slow, otherwise. I went to the conbini for lunch, then to ZigZag for dinner. Okazaki is really starting to grow on me. I know I complained about it a lot at first, but now that I’m starting to get used to things here, I’m feeling a little nostalgic about the place before I even leave.

A few things I have noted, though:

Carabiners ROCK. They’re great because you can use them to hook bags to other bags, so they don’t fall off or get lost. For the next trip I take, I’m getting some bigger ones, like the ones real rock climbers use.

Smoking is being stomped on very vigorously in Japan now (well, except for the vending machines), and tonight while doing laundry, I noticed a woman sitting in her car smoking and reading a magazine. I bet she wanted a cigarette while waiting for her laundry. Japan is getting more and more like America in that respect.

Daily Brush With Death

Sidewalks are kind of hit-and-miss here. Every day I walk to school, I feel like I’m taking my life into my own hands. On one side of the road, there’s this giant white barricade wall that cannot be breached which guards the sidewalk. It’s too high to climb, but it offers protection from the drivers. On the other side of the road… well, there’s nothing. Just a slim shoulder of road. The problem is that in order to get to the barrier on the other side, you have to walk a few blocks on the dangerous side.

Here, experience my peril first-hand!

See that safe-looking white barricade? Yeah, you can’t get to the sidewalk behind it from here. (I’m actually looking backwards, towards the dorm.)

Enjoy the sidewalk-free lifestyle. You can cross over to the barricaded side here at this crosswalk:

We’re finally on the safe side of the barricade, just as it’s about to run out.

See that tunnel up ahead? It’s designed so you can cross under the street. Actually not bad:

There’s even a warning against suspicious people!

So you come out the other side of the tunnel and– wait, where’s the sidewalk???

Okay, back over to the other side, where there’s a sidewalk-ish thing:

Then we turn the corner and, oh, it’s gone again. Or is it? Just don’t fall through the loose gutter covers!

There just aren’t a whole lot of places for pedestrians on the side streets here.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to go to Okazaki Castle, and a few other places before class.

If I don’t get squashed.

The Trash Heap Has Spoken!

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Oct 232007

Yesterday was interesting.

I got up at 8 a.m. I was freezing, and my throat was killing me. The window had been leaking cold air into my room, and it was right above where my head is on the bed. (Or was– I moved the other way on the bed so my head and feet are reversed.)

I felt lousy for most of the morning. The funny thing is, most of the people I saw on campus were coughing and hacking too. So apparently I wasn’t the only one who got caught in the draft. And no, the window was closed. It just wasn’t well-insulated.

Class got moved to from 12:40 to 1:40, only I didn’t remember being told that. They probably told me in Japanese, which explains why I screwed up. The rest of my classes this week will go from 1:40-4:40, so now I have mornings totally free. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with that now.

Denny’s

After class, I finally went to the local Denny’s. First off, I saw no chopsticks. All I saw was silverware. Sorry, guys. No souvenirs for you.

Let me just say that every meal I’ve had in Japan up until now has been very good. I was surprised to discover that Denny’s in Japan is somehow worse than Denny’s in the U.S. My server was very nice, but the food she brought me was poison.

Drinks. What would I like to drink? How about ginger ale? No, they don’t have that. So she gave me a colorful drink menu to choose from. Hmm… Okay, how about pink lemonade? It can’t be all that bad, right? She brings me something bright pink. It turns out it’s pink lemonade soda so sweet it would put a 5-year old into insulin shock.

I’ll have water then.

Then the puzzle of settling on actual food to eat. My confidence unshaken, I perused the menu. Hmm… American Club Sandwich. I can’t read this other stuff, but the picture looks good.

Well, it looks like a sandwich…

I’ll get a side of fries with that, too. What the heck.

The fries came as an appetizer. They were taramasala mayo fries, I think. All I know is that they came with a pink sauce with little red dots in it. It wasn’t bad. It tasted like mayo mixed with something. So far, not bad.

Then came the sandwich.

I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it. It was a double-decker club sandwich all right, but the first deck consisted of bacon, 2 fried eggs, and ketchup.

Where I come from, that’s already a meal.

We call it breakfast.

The second deck was some sort of chicken in a sweet sauce or gravy, lettuce, and mayo.

And that’s something we call lunch, or maybe dinner.

You might think it doesn’t sound too bad.

And you would be wrong.

They are all foods I like.Â And I’m actually amazed that I got it down without bringing it back up. Describing it later to someone, I could actually feel the normal meal I had later try to make an escape from my stomach.

So yeah, Denny’s. Service was great. Food… ugh. Throws self on sword to relieve stomach pain.

I don’t know of any Americans who would think, “Hmm, I think I’ll have a club sandwich. Esther, let’s fry some eggs and bacon, and hey, get some of that chicken and gravy out!”

Just as much as Americans don’t understand Japan, Japanese don’t get us. “American” gets stuck on the most random stuff here: it’s put on stuff that no American (well, no American in his right mind, anyway) would ever eat.

I think it’s just an excuse to for one group of Japanese to try to fool the rest of the country into trying to eat something they wouldn’t ordinarily eat.

“Hey, I know you wouldn’t normally eat a bacon and egg and chicken and gravy sandwich, but you know, those Americans do, and they’re so wild! Now you eat it too, so you can be wild!”

“Mmkay.”

“Now have this American ice cream. We filled a big paint bucket with ice cream…”

Not much else happened yesterday. I spent the evening recovering from that meal mistake, then got a snack at the conbini. Thank you, conbini. You saved me again.

My heeeero!

Oh I Looove Trash

Trash sorting is the most disgusting thing ever. I’ll have a hard time taking the shoe-switching thing seriously now that I’ve seen what the landlady does to improperly sorted trash.

If you’ve never been to Japan, let me explain. It’s a small country, with little room for things like landfills, so you’re not allowed to throw anything away.

You have to pack out all of your trash with you, because you will never see a public trash can. If there was such a mythical beast, it would be crammed full of trash that people didn’t know what to do with, or just got tired of carrying around with them all the time.

Okay, that’s only half true.

Trash is supposed to be sorted into burnable trash, paper, plastic/non-burnable trash, PET (plastic bottles), cans, and glass. I’ve been sorting as best as I can, and taking it down to the kitchen, which also serves as Sorting Central.

But apparently, people fail sorting on a daily basis, and the landlady has decided that if you don’t put trash in the right place, she’ll put it ON THE PREP TABLE BY THE TRASH. So when you come into the kitchen, you can see a lovely (and by lovely, I mean repulsive and disgusting) pile of Other People’s Rejected Trash. Things like Kleenex with hairballs, old food containers, old dirty chopsticks, cigarette butts… I even saw a pair of torn dirty underwear.

Let me repeat that last item again, just in case you missed it. Someone threw away their underwear because it was in such terrible shape, and instead of winding up in the trash, it wound up on the prep table in the kitchen by the trash can.

This is the same prep table people make their food on.

So yeah. Japan? Never taking the shoe thing with a straight face again.

Oh, and I’m staying the hell away from the kitchen.

Now I’m hoarding all of my trash until the last day, where I’ll just ninja-sort it and flee, unless I can find a trashcan, which will probably be next to the unicorn and the leprechaun.

By the way, hotels are great for the simple reason that they have trashcans in the rooms, AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO SORT IT.

Oh, you can find recycling bins for the various things you buy from vending machines, but that’s 99% cans and bottles, which does me no good at all.

Noodling Around Okazaki on a Sunday

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Oct 212007

Today was nice.

I woke up at 8, was freezing to death, cranked up the heat (once I figured out how), then went back to sleep until 10 a.m. (Which is exceedingly late for me.)

I goofed around for most of the day, played on the computer a bit, did laundry, and then I went to the local Aeon mall.

Going to the mall was interesting. It was about a 25 minute hike to get there, and when I got there, it felt like a smaller-scale version of a U.S. mall. As if everything had been shrunk a bit.

It felt very crowded, and un-U.S.-mall-like. American malls generally have more space devoted to wide corridors that are easy to traverse without having to get to close to the other shoppers. Land isn’t as plentiful here, so I understand that you can’t get such a luxury and still keep prices reasonable.

I found a Sports Authority, and it had Chunichi Dragons hats, which were expensive at 2,400 yen, but I wanted a hat. They weren’t the good wool hats, they were the cheaper ones with the plastic mesh back.Â I got my hat anyway, and now I am Mr. Baseball, too. (But I lack Tom Selleck’s mustache powers.)

Then it was back down route 248 (the main drag in this section of Okazaki) to stop off at the Seiyu. It was one of those, grocery store on the first floor, lumber on the second floor, clothes on the third floor sort of stores. It was kind of confusing, but at least I have a place I can buy groceries where nobody knows that I wandered in accidentally when they were closed.Â

I wandered some more and found a kaitenzushi place, which is Japanese for conveyor belt sushi. I snagged some tasty deep-fried nuggets… of what I don’t know, but it was good. Chicken, maybe? Pork? Either way, it was good.

Then I found my Holy Grail: ootoro, my favorite cut of tuna. It’s the fattiest cut, and it goes down like butter.

It’s also 600 yen a plate, so I could only have one plate. I had a few more plates of other stuff, like egg sushi. But it was no ootoro.

I am now ruined for sushi.

I decided to skip Denny’s again, because my rule is one restaurant a day to keep the costs down. After first dinner, I went to the QuickMart for second dinner, because sushi doesn’t fill me up. Convenience store food here is good. Then I listened to a little ESPN, did a little antivirus scanning, and now I’m heading to bed.

Off to Kyoto for the Weekend!

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Oct 182007

I’m still in Okazaki, but I’m leaving for Kyoto in just a few minutes for the weekend. I need to rest for another 5-10 minutes, then I’m heading out.

That’s one thing I’ve discovered I have to do– make time to rest. If I don’t, I suffer.

Classes are hard. For some reason, the Japanese is fighting my brain, and my brain is losing.

My teachers are great. I’m just slow for some reason. I’ll get some weird hard stuff right, and then totally blank on the easy stuff.

I guess it means I’ll have to study more when I get home.

I’ve sort of flip-flopped on whether I’d like to live here or not. Sometimes I totally want to, other times, I’m totally hating it. My travel-related discomfort probably plays a large role.

I won’t make a decision until I hit Tokyo in November. No point in doing that now without more experience under my belt.

Beppu is sounding more and more like a good idea. I might head down there for a night or two and just let the hot water take me away.

Anyway, time to go catch the bus to JR Okazaki.

Kyoto Plans

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Oct 172007

So far, I think my tentative schedule is going to be:

10/26 last day in Okazaki– go to Osaka.
10/26-10/28 Enjoy Osaka, then head to Nara.
10/28-10/29 Enjoy Nara, then head to either Hiroshima or Kyoto again, if I feel like more Kyoto.
10/29-11/1 Hiroshima or Kyoto
11/1-11/3 Kyoto or Hiroshima, or move on to Nagano
11/3-11/5 Nagano or Sendai
11/6 Sendai or… uh… I dunno.
11/8 Arrive in Tokyo.
11/14 go home.

I’m thinking something along those lines.

Or not.

It all depends on whether I can find a good spa resort or if my mood changes.

Radio from Home

One nice thing I’ve found: my local sports radio station in Raleigh, N.C., has an Internet streaming feed of their local programming, so I can get a little feel of home when I get overwhelmed by all the Japanese culture.

It’s interesting that even with all of the Japanese that I studied, it’s still really easy to feel culturally overwhelmed here. I think it would almost be easier to understand nothing that to try to puzzle out every sign I see.

Kyoto Plans

I’m leaving Okazaki for my weekend trip to Kyoto around 5 p.m. local time, so I won’t get there until 7 p.m. or so. I’m stopping for dinner at Nagoya Station, because it’s convenient. I would leave earlier, but I have class until about 3:30 p.m., then I have a 20-min walk home, then it will take time to catch the bus to the train station.

It all adds up.

In theory, my hotel in Kyoto has “Internet LAN,” but in practice, well, we’ll see what that really means.

Thursday night I’m planning to hang around Gion a bit and maybe find a restaurant with a nice river view. Gion is the part of Kyoto where you’ll find all the geisha.

And the tourists.

On Friday, I’m planning on shrine-ing out. My hotel is 10 minutes from the Fushimi Inari shrine, so I’ll try to go there first. After that it’s Kiyomizu Temple, the Golden Pavilion, and a bunch more. I found a really cool magazine (in Japanese, of course) that has a great map with pictures on it, so I can pick the more photogenic shrines and temples to visit.

On Saturday, I’ll go to wherever I missed on Friday.

I’m going to try to pace myself, because I learned in Nagoya that if I don’t, I’ll suffer.

Climbing Up Again.

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Oct 172007

I’m starting to feel a bit better.

I can’t believe I’ve already been in Japan for a week. Considering I’ve spent a good portion of it horizontal, I’m not too thrilled about that aspect, but at least I’m here.

I’m really looking forward to going to Kyoto, just to get out of Okazaki for a few days, and to sleep on a bed like I’m used to for two nights.

I can’t wait! I’m going to find a real bath to soak in for a few days.

I can’t do futons. It’s like sleeping on a steel examining table, only less comfortable.

Blue Monday

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Oct 152007

Today was a slow day. I got up early, fiddled with setting up the website (I finally figured out why it wouldn’t resolve), did my homework, went to class, then rested.

All of the running around from this weekend took a lot out of me.

On the upside, I’m learning a lot in the Japanese language classes at Yamasa. It’s tough, but a lot of fun.

I also managed to get all 500 of my Nagoya snapshots processed in Photoshop. Batch scripts, hooray!

Now I just have to finish going through them all, and figure out which ones go up, and which ones go out. I’m getting rid of the duds. Photo editing is hard for me. I love all of my photos, even the really bad ones.

Food-wise, I find that I’m living off of the convenience store food a lot. Maybe it’s because I’m lazy, but the grocery store is far away, and I really don’t feel like cooking. I’m glad I brought those protein bars with me now. Sweet, sweet instant breakfast.

I learned pretty fast how to spot sodium on Japanese nutrition labels. It shows up as:ã€€ãƒŠãƒˆãƒªã‚¦ãƒ , which is basically the Latin word Natrium, which means Sodium. If you need to sound it out, it’s natoriumu. Pronounce every consonant and vowel.

I’ll try some more real Japanese cuisine when I hit Kyoto and some of the other big cities. There’s a Denny’s right up the street… that’s looking tempting…

Well, as tempting as a Denny’s can look.

COPS: Okazaki and More Nagoya Festival Fun.

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Oct 142007

I went back to Nagoya today, because even though I got sunburned, the festival was going to go on with or without me.

I rode my evil little bicycle to the station today, because even though it’s uncomfortable, it beats walking.

On the way to the station, I saw two guys riding on the same bike. Then I saw a police car pull them over, and 3 cops piled out to lecture and/or ticket them. Bad boys, bad boys… COPS: Okazaki!

After watching that action unfold, off to Nagoya I went.

Dashi and Kagura Parades

I managed to catch both the Dashi and Kagura float parades, and the childrens’ Mikoshi parade, as well as a parade for the sister cities, which I skipped. (Fast Fact: L.A. is a sister city to Nagoya.)

The Dashi are these giant floats on carts that have all sorts of bright decorations on them, and karakuri mechanical dolls on them that perform various little dances and act out plays.

They’re setting up the dashi floats now after wheeling them into the square.

Mid-performance!

Special effects!

As impressive as the plays are the people who have to turn the Dashi floats, which have wheels that don’t turn.

The Kagura floats are these floats that are basically drums with lots of gold ornamentation on them, and kids just beat the hell out of these drums with long sticks.

It’s loud.

The Children’s Parade

Then came the kids’ parade. That was mostly lots of cute mascot-y things, and weird things, like a lion-dance-like shinkansen (bullet train).

And this rabbit-thing was cute:

Then there was an appearance by the Nagoya Fire Board Marching Band, and their color guard, the Lily Angels. They were all very good.

Tubas!

The Lily Angels:

I saw some cars and mascots with people from sister cities, and started to get bored and decided to move on to the park.

After the Parades, Wandering Around Nagoya

As I was heading to the park, I saw a building that was called the Robot Museum, and I was intrigued.

But apparently it had just shuttered its doors for good. Darn it.

They even bagged up the exhibits.

In the park there were a bunch of guys wearing 50s-style outfits, dancing. They even had the greased-back hair.

There were the usual festival stalls for stuff like taiyaki, takoyaki, and yakisoba, but I gave those a miss. (The guys are still dancing here.)

I liked the fountain in the park.

And you can see the Nagoya TV tower in the park as well:

On to Atsuta Shrine

Then it was time to head to Atsuta Shrine for a martial arts expo. Apparently they have mastered the art of hiding giant buildings by not putting up any signs near the respective subway stops. I saw signs for everything but the shrine coming out of the subway, so I wound up walking the wrong way for 10 minutes until I figured it out.

By the time I got there, I was fading, so I strolled around a bit, watched some Iaido, saw all the cute kids for shichi-go-san (a Shinto ceremony for kids aged 7, 5, and 3, hence the name shichi-go-san, which is Japanese for 7, 5, and 3) and I didn’t feel like taking pictures. The lighting was bad, and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like it.

I also skipped the omikuji (omikuji are paper fortune slips you can usually get at temples and shrines), because the I didn’t feel like jinxing myself when I’m not even one week into my trip.

IÂ headed back to Nagoya station, where I ate many tasty things (another chicken & egg sandwich and an iced cocoa, which were both delicious), then back home to ride the buttbuster 9000 back to the dorm.

Now I’ll do some laundry, some homework, and sleep.

Men’s Pocky Is Awesome

Oh, and I had a box of “Men’s Pocky” for dessert tonight. Don’t laugh. It’s awesome.

The chocolate is nice and dark, not too sweet, just the way I like it.

For those who don’t know, Pocky is a snack made of thin pretzel sticks covered with chocolate (and other things), and are laced with something akin to crack, because they are that addictive.

“Men’s Pocky” is made with a dark chocolate coating, because in Japan, manly men aren’t supposed to like sweet things. It’s, well, unmanly. Manly men should like bitter things.

So this is the candy for manly men… if manly men ate candy.

Unfortunately, they’re too busy eating rusty nails and the organs of weird creatures that taste like battery acid.

Because they’re manly!

I’m up to over 500 photos now, and it’s only been 4 days. I’m in trouble. Thinking of the photo editing alone makes me shudder.

Tomorrow is a rest/recovery day, with more classes. I don’t plan on doing much.

Thursday, I’m on my way to Kyoto to see some temples. I can’t wait for that. I’m going to hit all the highlights I can.

Oh, a postscript– I went to a drug store to pick up something for my sunburn, and to my great surprise, they sell topical prednisone cream over the counter. I found this out because I asked for something, and the pharmacist gave me some to use. (For those who don’t know, prednisone is a powerful steroid anti-inflammatory drug, usually only available by prescription in the U.S.) So now I have something else to get rid of before I leave Japan, I guess.

Remember– you can’t bring those sorts of things back to the U.S. without a prescription!

Flower Cars and Feudal Lords. Parade!

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Oct 132007

Big day today!

For starters, I woke up at 7 a.m. On a Saturday. Can’t help it.

Then I did laundry at the laundromat next to the QuickMart.

I lead an exciting life!

Laundry was completed without much incident.

Wandering in Nagoya

Then I set off for Nagoya. This time the trains worked!

At first, I was a bit worried that the trip would be a bust, because I was trying to find Kinokuniya (a book store chain in Japan), and I couldn’t find it. I wound up wandering around the area near the station.

Here’s the station:

I saw a cool window display as well:

I even found the Computer Building!

I started to notice that something was going on.

Police were starting to blockade the streets, and people were expectantly standing around the blockades. People here usually don’t just stand around and not move purposefully somewhere, so I had a feeling something might happen, so I joined them in their standing around.

Suddenly, lo and behold! A parade! I had heard that there was going to be a festival in the region, but I didn’t know I’d actually stumble across it.

A couple approached me and started talking to me in English.

Of course, they asked me if I was an English teacher… *sigh.* But they were still kind enough to clue me in a little, and they gave me some sightseeing ideas, so it’s fine.

I was lucky because I was smart and brought my little Nikon point-and-shoot digital camera. I got about 300 pictures, (okay, way too many) but the parade was awesome.

There were even some mock battles. For those of you wondering about the scores, in the main match it was riflemen 1, guys with spears 0. Then there were some guys with swords, who did some mock slashing of people. My Japanese history is weak, so I was at a bit of a loss.

A little slapstick mid-battle:

Back to the fighting:

There were also visits by the members of the Nobunaga clan. Wait, I think this is the Tokugawa car. Either way, it was pretty cool.

I even got pictures of the people following behind the daimyos on horseback to clean up the inevitable daimyo horse poop.

After the Parade, a Feast!

After the parade, I went back to JR Nagoya Station to get food, because I hadn’t eaten since 8 a.m. I found a nice little sushi shop, where they served me some piping hot green tea, a small glass of water, and nigiri sushi, in which the chef had cleverly concealed enough wasabi to peel all the mucus membranes from my head.

But it was really good.

For “dessert,” he had prepared two pieces of sweet sushi. One was … I don’t even remember, and the other one was egg sushi with some kind of sweet sauce. Woo! A 9 out of 10 on the food scale.

After that, it was time for Kinokuniya, which I managed to find after asking the lady at the information desk in Nagoya Station for directions. She was impressed that I tried to ask her in Japanese, but since my brain’s batteries were failing, she let me speak in English.

A tip– in the big cities, find the information desk people and ask them every question that enters your tourist brain. You will not be sorry, and they all speak good English. And honestly, why waste hours searching like an idiot when someone else can just tell you where it is?

I headed to Kinokuniya. I picked up a fall foliage tourist magazine for some ideas, and a map book of beautiful scenic hikes. I could have gone into a book buying frenzy, but I decided to save that for the end of the trip in Tokyo, because I don’t want to lug my purchases all over Japan. Both publications are all in Japanese, but I know enough to get some rough ideas.

Bic Camera!

After that, it was time for the real reason I went to Nagoya in the first place– a trip to Bic Camera. This was fun. I was on the hunt for a new denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), and after checking out the one that one of the other Yamasa students had, I knew what I wanted… sort of. I went to the display and played with a bunch, but I wound up buying the one I already knew how to use– the Sharp PW-AT760B. (B as in Black and B as in Bad because it’s BLACK! ) They had a red one, as well as a white one with a tan top, but if it wasn’t going to be all white, then I wanted the all-black one.

Yes, it does matter.

Yes, I am a nerd.

You probably know that already anyway.

The really nice part about buying the electronic dictionary at Bic was getting a point card, and about 5,000 yen worth of points on it. I spent 1,200 on a really nice bright orange case for my little denshi jisho, and I decided to bank the rest for later. Many thanks to the nice lady who explained to me in a mix of English and Japanese that the point card wouldn’t cost me anything. I was afraid I was going to get scammed or something. I have too much experience with that in the U.S., I guess. Yeah, I mean you guys who always try to sell me the rewards cards that should be free!

If you want to get your nerd on, seriously, check out Bic Camera if you get to Japan. There’s a lot cool stuff to check out. They had all kinds of toys. And by all means, get the point cards!

After that, I was famished, because sushi does not stick to my ribs. I went back to the station for a chicken and egg sandwich (oyako-sando!), a croissant, and iced milk. I had never had iced milk before, but man, it hit the spot. The Mermaid Cafe if you’re scoring at home. It’s near the Tokaido Line platform before the wicket.

Then I took a 30-minute train ride home, and I wrote this blog post just for you guys.

Tomorrow may be Nagoya again, if I can take it. Or it may just be me drooling in a corner of the room. I think I got a major case of sunburn, so part of the day may just be spent looking for aloe.

Feeling Crunky.

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Oct 122007

I had a fun evening, and things are slow, so I’ll tell you all about it now, because I have super-fast Ethernet.

I decided to go to Nagoya for dinner. I thought it would be fun to go to the station, which I hear is one of the largest train stations in the world, and find a place to eat.

Well, sometimes things don’t happen the way we expect them to.

I walked to JR Okazaki to catch a train to Nagoya. I went through the wicket, and down to the tracks. As I got to the platform, I sensed something was up, because both the local and the special express were sitting there, waiting for me with open doors, and nobody was running to them.

From what I have gathered so far, this is not normal train behavior in Japan.

The crowd of people at the ticket booth hassling the poor ticket agent should have also triggered my sense of alarm, but it did not. The people sitting on the train cars looking tired, bored, and ready to go to sleep should have also clued me in.

I think the jet lag has made me slightly dumber to miss that one.

So I got in a train car and waited.

And waited.

Meanwhile someone kept repeating something very polite about police I couldn’t quite understand, and “sorry for making you wait.”

I really need to improve my listening skills.

I did a little thinking, and realized that Something Really Bad must have happened to stop a whole train line, so I bailed for the local student bar on the Yamasa campus, “ZigZag,” again. It’s a nice place to socialize with the other students, and the food is cheap. So is the Guinness. But I skipped the beer again, because I reasoned that if it took me 25 minutes to figure out that the trains weren’t working, beer would not in any way improve my mental acuity.

On the way home, I found a drink called “Qoo.” I would have photographed it, but I didn’t feel like it. I’m not really sure what Qoo is. It seemed like a flat orange soda to me. Then again, it was late and dark, I was thirsty, and it looked cute.

I’m a sucker for cute, so Japan is probably going to get me good.

I stopped by my savior, the local QuickMart, where I found a “Crunky” bar (yes, Crunky) and some milk. Ah, that hit the spot.

And now I will finally pass out for the night.

Crunky bars are good. Kind of like a Nestle Crunch ice cream bar, only with a much cooler name.

Crunky.

My fellow Americans will know why the name Crunky amuses me, if they’re under 50.

Burugaria (is it Bulgaria?) brand blueberry yogurt has also served as a great breakfast and random snack.

And as a shout-out to my online gaming friend Omi, look what I found!

I’ll try to go to Nagoya again tomorrow.

Oh, I also found a great laundry detergent. It’s called “Attack! All In.” Just my style of laundry cleaning.

Attack!

I’m all in.

The Bicycle from Hell.

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Oct 122007

Today I discovered a few embarrassing, yet very important things.

The 2,000 yen/week bicycle you rent will probably look bad no matter what.
The 2,000 yen helmet you get extra somehow makes you look even worse.
The 2,000 yen/week bicycle rides even worse than you thought a bicycle could.
Using the 2,000 yen/week bicycle means that your posterior will severely dislike you.
It beats walking… sometimes?

I’m going to lay down on my stomach and sob softly into my pillow. Maybe I’ll be able to sit again tomorrow.

I suppose I could just block the memory. Or just create some better memories and hope they drown out my discomfort.

Other Stuff

I’m thinking about going to Nagoya to have some dinner at the station. I could seriously murder a cow right now and just eat it raw.

My teachers are nice, and they’re proving just how little Japanese I really know. That’s kind of sad. But they’re eager to help me, and I appreciate it. I had six semesters of Japanese in graduate school, but then I made the mistake of not studying much the last 3 years or so.

If you don’t use it, you lose it.

Fast.

More Random Stuff

It gets dark quickly here, because they don’t believe in Daylight Savings Time. I kind of miss that, but then again, when I’m in the U.S., and the sun doesn’t rise until 8 a.m. in October, well, that’s kind of messed-up, too.

My in-room phone has a “Morning Call” feature. (What we call aÂ “wake-up call” in the U.S.) I have no idea how to turn it off. I can set it for whenever I want to, but I can’t set it to “Never.”

My A/C and I keep having little fights over whether it wants to run or not. You’d think 75F would be cool enough to open the windows. You’d be wrong. Okazaki makes Florida feel like a desert. (It’s very humid here for some reason.) Opening the window only makes it worse.

In spite of it all, I’m having a blast. I’m in an unfamiliar country doing strange things, and nobody has arrested me.

Yet.

FEEL NEWS

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Oct 122007

This waking up before 6 a.m. thing is something it’s going to take time to get used to. Since my classes don’t start until 12:30 p.m., I have a lot of time to kill in the mornings.

So this morning I decided to head to the local supermarket, named FEEL NEWS… I’m not sure how one “feels” the news, or what it has to do with groceries, and I probably never will. Then again, I shop at a grocery store called Harris-Teeter, and sometimes I shop at Whole Foods. (But I don’t usually eat my foods whole.) So odd naming isn’t just a Japanese thing.

Anyway, it was around 9:30 or so, and I was thinking, “It should be open by now. It’s a supermarket, right?” I mean come on, the local Harris-Teeter is open 24/7. I can’t think of any respectable American grocery store that hasn’t gotten out of bed by 8 a.m.

So I walked in. The doors opened, I went up some stairs, and started walking around. Nobody said a word to me. Then after about 5 minutes, someone finally came and explained to me that the store was still closed.

*Sigh*

I guess that explains all the weird looks I was getting from the employees. It was just weird that nobody said anything to me for a while. Maybe it has something to do with being averse to telling a customer that he has made a rather large mistake? (A rather large mistake like not realizing that the store was still closed?)

I just have one question: if your store is closed, why do the doors open?

So I decided to go to the bookstore down the road. It was 9:45 a.m. by now. The sign on the door said that it opened at 9:30… but all of the windows were shuttered, and the staff was doing inventory on the floor. I didn’t even bother trying to find out if it’s open, because more than likely, it wasn’t.

I gave up and started to head back towards my dorm. On the way to the closed supermarket, I passed what looked like a small office supplies store that I thought was open. But when I came back to it on the way back, it was closed too, with a note scrawled on the door.

I’m sensing a trend.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and by the time classes are over at 3:30, I’ll make it just in time for everything to close.

Or at least for that memo about me to get around to everyone else.

Phone Stuff

I have the Internet, and my Estonian cell phone works.

I’m using the Softbank SIM card more often, because it’s cheaper for US people to call me in Japan than in Estonia… by about 2 orders of magnitude. In a pinch I can call out on the Estonian phone, because I read the fine manual and figured out how to use it. It’s online on the travelsimshop website. It’s a bit pricey to call out, but I can do it if I need to.

Another odd thing I saw during my morning walk– American-style houses sprouting up in new construction. Most of the houses I’ve seen here are very Japanese, very traditional. Not these. They look like something out of a Charlotte suburb.

Oh, I think I’ve almost figured out how to sort my trash. I’ll save that for later.

Jet Lag.

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Oct 112007

I’ve been sleeping pretty much all day, and after a long nap, I’m going to bed to sleep for another 8 hours or so.

Here are a couple of photos of my room in the Student Village at Yamasa, in case you didn’t see the one in the previous post.

The school has a nice bar called “ZigZag” that serves cheap Guinness. I went there for dinner, but decided to pass on the beer tonight. I don’t want to get any more dehydrated than I already am. I just kept to ginger ale and a cheese sandwich with a salad.

I walked around a little, but I have been mostly sleeping. I’ll be sociable later, when I can be awake for it.

The only thing I’m not used to yet are the hard beds here. At the hotel in Ueno it wasn’t so bad, but here, instead of a mattress, there’s a table-like thing that you pile futons on top of. Now I’ve got this pain in the center of my back. This time next week I’ll be having my little weekend getaway in Kyoto, so I only have to deal with it for a few days.

The other thing that has really irritated me is that the Estonian SIM card that I bought gets a signal, but I can’t figure out how to call the US on it yet.

I ended up renting one from Softbank for 105 yen a day when I got to Narita.

Oh, the final thing that’s driving me nuts– 10 yen coins. They’re huge, and while not worthless, they seem to reproduce in your pockets while you’re not looking.

Time for more sleep now. Jet lag is kicking my butt.

Off to Japan!

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Oct 112007

I have arrived safely in Okazaki. I have a high-speed Ethernet connection in my room, so I am happy. Let me tell you how I got here…

The Flight Over

My flight from Raleigh to Dallas-Ft. Worth left at 6:00 a.m. I’m an international passenger, so I had to be at the airport 2 hours early. (4 a.m.!) To get there, I had to leave home at 3:30 a.m. That means I had to get up at 2:30 a.m.

I didn’t bother with sleeping. I could do that on the plane.

At 3:30 a.m., a car showed up to take me to the airport. It was a Lincoln Town Car. I wouldn’t use one every day, but it’s a great car for riding to the airport.

When I got to the airport, I realized nothing was open yet. The counters didn’t open until a little after 4 a.m. Great! That meant no lines!

Going through security was a bit of work. I unbundled all of my electronics, then did the shoe dance that they want you to do, and I still set off the detector.

It’s a good thing I went through early. I also realized that I packed way too many electronics. (Why am I taking electronics to Japan? That’s like taking baguettes to France.)

My friend Michael was on the same flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth as I was. What a coincidence! But it was nice to have a close friend on the same flight. Michael also did something noble and wonderful which I will never forget– he bumped me up to First Class. Thanks, man. That was beautiful of you.

I got an Admirals’ Club day pass through American, and when I got to DFW, I promptly went to the lounge and recovered from the 6:00 a.m. flight. I love those lounges.

Sadly, the flight to Japan wasn’t so comfy. I was in the middle section of coach on a 777, and it felt like I was flying in a cave. I got a seat over the wings, so it was pretty smooth for the most part, but the 13-plus hour flight was tiring.

I spent most of the flight trying to sleep through it.

I listened to a lot of podcasts. Thanks Leo.

There were LCD TV panels on the back of the seats that show how far away we are from Japan on a little map, and it made the flight seem longer, because it looked as if the plane just wasn’t moving, even though I knew we’re racing through the air at 500-plus miles per hour. We just had a lot of distance to cover.

Arrival in Narita

We made it to Narita on time. I wish there was an arrival lounge for Admiral’s Club members there. I could have used a few minutes to decompress before getting hit full-on with culture shock. And it is a bit of a shock after flying in a dark cave for 13-14 hours to be dumped in a land where everything is alien, including me.

At immigration, they sent me to the Japanese counters instead of the foreigner counters. I guess it was because they had more foreigners coming in than they could deal with, because I don’t look Japanese. At all. (My red hair gives me away.)

Then on to customs. My tenuous grip of Japanese helped me explain my medicine situation, so I got through without being thrown out of the country, but I had to show them my yakkan shoumei, and there was some unpacking and repacking involved.

On to Tokyo

I had to find the Keisei Skyliner, which is an express train from Narita Airport to Ueno Station in Tokyo. It’s about $10-15 cheaper than the JR Narita Express, and it’s slightly faster, too. One tip– don’t buy the first train tickets you see upstairs. Those are sold by a ticket agency who marks up the actual price. Go to the basement of Narita, where the train station is, and buy it from the company.

I made it to Ueno after an hour and a bit, and had to lug my suitcases to the hotel. Silly me, I didn’t realize that Ueno Station has elevators and escalators. So I had to carry the Suitcases of Death up and down stairs. It was tiring. That one-bag idea is looking really good now, and 2 bags just looks dumb.

For my first and only night night in Tokyo for now, I stayed at the Ueno Terminal Hotel. The room was mind-bogglingly tiny for someone used to American hotels, but the room was clean, the service was good, and everything was laid out in a way I could figure out.

My Japanese has come in handy a number of times already. The people here are very polite, and will try to help you if you try to speak slowly and clearly.

After I made it safely to my tiny business hotel in Ueno, I collapsed for a couple of hours, took a shower in a bathroom so small, it boggled my mind some more.

Then I went to Akihabara for a brief look around. (It’s only 2 stops away on the Yamanote line, so why not?) I decided not to buy anything, because I was totally jet-lagged and dazed, and also, anything I bought, I would have to carry all over the country for the next five weeks.

Off to Okazaki

I went back to my room, slept for an hour,Â got up, went to the hotel restaurant, ate some pizza, and passed out at 10 p.m. (First time I’ve done that in a while!) I slept in until 5 a.m., then dashed out to catch my 7:36 a.m. shinkansen to Toyohashi.

When I got to Toyohashi, I promptly took the wrong train to Okazaki, but I got there eventually anyway. The local will get you there, just in an excruciatingly slow fashion.

As soon as I got here, they gave me a Japanese language test.

I’ll let that sink in for a moment.

I know it’s important, but man, my brain is just… full or something. It’s probably the jet lag.

The room in the dorm is small, but the staff is nice.

Time for another nap, then some walking around town.