5 weeks.
i have been in japan for 5 weeks now. japan is pretty awsome. what i have done since last time: the sunday i last posted we went out for dinner for my welcome\maggie's goodbye. we went to this restaurant really near the school called j something. it was tradtional japanese food family style so i tried a little bit of everything. i am a much more adventerous person in japan... especially culinarily speaking. i tried their chewy beef guts (the japanese have a penchant for chewy things which is why they enjoy beef guts and octopus so much despite the lack of taste.... i on the other hand was thoroughly repulsed my the chewy gooey texture) which tasted fine but felt gross, their liver which also tasted fine but as anyone who knows me knows i have always detested the texture of liver, clams or oysters, and an assortment of other things not so strange such as fried chicken balls (very popular here). i also triend as many different kinda of alcohol as i could... there was a plum wine, a potato saki, and some kind of strong herbal liquer amoung others. it was a good night.
on monday i went with nami (a girl i work with whose really nice but shes getting married and quitting next month.) to take maggie to the airport in osaka. we took the train to sannomiya and a bus to the airport. i had macdonalds for the first time in a very long time at the airport ... i had a chicken burger and fries and it was delightful. maggie was really sad to leave and i was weirded out because it meant i was teaching classes on my own now and actually in Japan.
we got home late from the airport and i don't think i did much but read - i finished out (it was really scary at the end and i'm not sure i liked how it ended) and now i'm reading hunters and gatherers which is really good but im almost done so im thinking i might read the brothers karmokov yet to evenly distribute my different types of lit.
so then i had my first week of classes on my own. it went ok ...i think only one kid cried and the moms were a big help in the baby classes ... i keep singing all the tunes wrong but the moms know everything so they help me out. my kids are really nice ... even the older kids ... there are only a few that have it in for me and some of the kids are really sweet ( i got my first present from a student from by way of a box of chocolates for valentines day) from this little boy i have on tuesdays and he always brings this abc vehicle book that we read and he spent like 7 years in canada ... i think in like burlington or brampton or something ...he always has a canadian flag key ring on his bag.
teaching is cool but its alot more work than sitting at the desk at the hosptial ever was ....some of my student don't want to say anything so i act silly and make them play chardes and they laugh and sometimes it is difficult to think of all these activities and fun things to do to keep them amused and sometimes it is hard to think of how to explain things...but its cool. The hours are long but it is keeping me happy.
My co-workers are super cool ... i love mamiko (my manager) cause she is awesome and Ayako who i have been spending like every weekend with and Nami and Chika are really cool too except they are both leaving in the next couple of months which is sad but it happens to the best of us.
Me and Ayako and nami went out for dinner after work one night to this little restaurant/bar that was a complete hole in the wall and there was this really drunk businessman and he kept giving us candy and like these little toys... it was pretty strange. We had these little rolls of goat chese wrappd in procuitto with a slice of avacado on top that was like so yummy and this strange little curry soup concoction and i tried a pretty much raw egg. they put eggs oneverything here and alot are mostly raw... again they really like the gooey texture but me not so much.
okay so what is next?
that weekend (which would have have been feb 10 and 11th ) I went to dinner in Sannomiya with ayako and met a bunch of her friends on Sunday night. I went to Sannomiya early on Sunday... cause i had gotten the knack of taking the train by then!!! ...and walked around for a good long while. I must say wandering around and exploring in Japan is utterly fantastic. there is nothing that i think i love more than wandering around by myself sometimes (well maybe being cozy and reading a book and dancing with friend are up there to but wandering is definately up there with one of the things that makes me that makes me happiest) especially when there are good things to see. its unbelievable.
Kobe is a super super cool city. I think i love it. there are these big fancy shopping malls and then there are these arcades that are semi outside with swarms of people walking around and there are all these really little parisian looking little cafes that have wonderfully delicious and delectable cakes and pasteries in them where i have made it a priority to go and read in. and the two different sides of the train station that you can get on are like two completely different sides of the sannomiya. 
on the one side is this big meg ryan billboard and it feels a little more nitty gritty than the other side which seems a little more big city fancy with a big concert hall and all.
the other side has all these little street with big neon signs and these little aracdes... its absolutely marvolous to say the least. 
so i wondered around for awhile, ate a bag of the really scrumptions cookies went through the department stores which are shopping malls with all of these little open stores and it is all designer labels...my first close encounter with marc jacobs, i got this little shirt dress at this japanese label that was playing really good music. leat to say i say many things to covet.
so around 7 pm i met ayako outside on the street where a band was playing where she led me to a traditional japanese restaurant in a little allyway. luckily i didn't wear my holey socks because i had to take off my shoes (i make sure not to wear the holey ones wherever i might have to take off my shoes which means i really need some new socks) it was family style so i tried a little of everything..sashami and other stuff. her friends don't really know english that well but she made it seem we wouldn't be able to communicate at all, but i would have to sit there miming. but they could say some things and they understood alot because everyone had studied english in junior high, high school, or at an outside english school. i was loved because i could speak english everyone wanted to talk to me...they just wanted me to talk so that they could listen to me, it was awesome! i don't think i have every felt so popular in my entire life. her friends are all so nice. i think it was one of the only times i have ever been in a group setting and not felt awkeard or shy at all and didn't sit there quietly staring at people but was actually involved in conversations and human interaction and stuff (well ayako was doing alot of translating but you know what i mean). it was really really cool i felt more relaxed than usual not that i didn't enjoy sitting and staring at people. so we all drank and where merry and one of her friends and her boyfriend drove us home at the end of the night and i promptly fell asleep.
on monday i wanted to go to the hundred yen store (or the dollar store in canada) so i took the train to akashi (a bigger city than okubo is a prefecture or suburb of) and found the hundred yen store where i wasted away hours (or at least one) and bought the store out. first minor crisis: i spent every last cent that i had in the hundred yen store and japan is a cash based society...most places don't take bank or credit cards. and bank machines close at certain times...they aren't open all night and they aren't everywhere like in canada and they aren't open on the weekend sometimes. so i didn't have any money on me so i couldn't buy a train ticket to go meet ayako in kobe like i was supposed to or go home to okubo. so i started to freak out a little bit but i did my best to remain calm...deep breaths constanly telling myself it was okay, remembering what david told me which was, "sister don't freak out if you get lost (or stranded in this case) just think of it as an adventure at leat thats what i do". little steps to maintaining ones grasp on reality and working your way to a sensible and rational solution otherwise not ending up in a corner crying and whispering wild and frantic messages of wanting ones mommy. so i went to the bank i remember seeing but it was closed for cleaning. it being sunday and all, i called ayako but she didn't answer, i went to the train station and walked around but couldn't find any machine. i checked if the train station ticket buying machines took cards but they didn't. i checked if there was another ticket counter but there wasn't, so i went to the train station mall to ask information but she didn't speak very much english at all. so she gave me some directions but of course we all know i suck at directions. so i had no idea what she was talking about so i ended up just walking around the train station in circles and finally found a little place that looked like the bank machine place in okubo and i went in and there were bank machines! they were all in japanese (the ones at my bank have has an english funtion) so i made some guesses and it all went well and i got some money! yay!! salvation!!
throughout this time i was supposed to be on the train to kobe to meet ayako to make valentines cakes with her neices and nephews for her boyfriend. so she called me and i tried my best to relay my angst and relief (although i don't think i came across very well) and i told her that i was on my way. so i got one the train and met ayako in kobe where she was waiting for me to take me to her house with her 2 little neices and nephews in tow.
her neices and nephews are adorable. they were shy with me like two seconds and the next thing we were running around the grocery store and i was lifting them in the air (rocket ship jumps...they're pretty popular with the kids). ayako lives with her family up the mountain and her neices and nephew don't speak any english so the whole way there we looked through a food magazine and i pointed to things to ask them if they liked it and they nodded yes or no. after grocery shopping we went to ayakos house and i met her mom who also doesn't speak any english or at least no to me (people are very shy to speak english to an english person) and her grandmother who kept saying all these things to me in japanese but seemed very sweet. so we cut out heart shaped pasteries and helped the kids help ayako make the little cakes and her nephew played wii. i tried boxing and i wasn't too bad and they made me a little wii person who was a pretty funny looking version of myself. here neices and nephews are really sweet and friendly and i had so much fun playing with them and her mother and grandmother are really sweet and i met her two brothers for a little bit and her dad and her suster in law and everyone is super nice. 
her family is realy cool and it was nice being with a family again cause well you know i like families. i let the kids play with my ipod and take pictures with the camera they seemed quite inthralled for a little while...they are really cute and i felt okay and at home there it wa really good. 
ayako and her mom and her sister in law made us dinner and it was a variatable feast. we all sat at the table on cushions on the floor and we had little bowls of rice and there was fried chicken balls, and two kinds of little meat balls, curried shrimp, liver, these rally salty pickeled plums, their version of pickles which look like cloves of garlic and this gooey mushed up mountain potato stuff, amoung other things and i tried everything...the mountain potato was a little gooey for my liking but it was okay on rice, the plums were much to salty but that's cause i just took a bite but everyone else poured hot green tea on their rice and mixed in a bit of the plum and made a soupesh sort of thing, and i'm not gonna lie i did not like the liver at ll although the kids loved it, but everything else was great. it was my first home cooked meal. i also ate dried squid on a stick as a predinner snack which i thought tasted pretty funny but the kids gobbled it up. i also go to see their shrine to their grandfather who passed away a few years ago where they offer rice and stuff which was pretty cool. 
after giving many piggy back rides i was quite tired and i declined ayakos offer to go to karaoke with her friend and she took me to the kobe station where i got cunfused as to what trin to take after telling her boyfriend that i knew the trains like the back of my hand by now and had to call her to figure it out. ayako is wonderfull. she is going to get married to her boyfriend in september so they are just tring to save up for that and they are going to move into another house that there parents own really close by. ayako is very excited that ikea is opening here so we are going to have an ikea trip so that we can buy some new furnishing for her new house and she has already invited me to her wedding and i told her i would do anything i could to help and we might travel a little bit together if we geth the chance. all the people are really good people and i am really thankful and happy. i love japan because they have been so cool to me.
so after a spendid day at ayakos i went home and although i intended to go right to sleep i gathered up all my booty, spread out the spoils of the day on the floor
and preceded to spen half the night making valentines that none of you will recieve for many months most likely.
i have been in japan for 5 weeks now. japan is pretty awsome. what i have done since last time: the sunday i last posted we went out for dinner for my welcome\maggie's goodbye. we went to this restaurant really near the school called j something. it was tradtional japanese food family style so i tried a little bit of everything. i am a much more adventerous person in japan... especially culinarily speaking. i tried their chewy beef guts (the japanese have a penchant for chewy things which is why they enjoy beef guts and octopus so much despite the lack of taste.... i on the other hand was thoroughly repulsed my the chewy gooey texture) which tasted fine but felt gross, their liver which also tasted fine but as anyone who knows me knows i have always detested the texture of liver, clams or oysters, and an assortment of other things not so strange such as fried chicken balls (very popular here). i also triend as many different kinda of alcohol as i could... there was a plum wine, a potato saki, and some kind of strong herbal liquer amoung others. it was a good night.
on monday i went with nami (a girl i work with whose really nice but shes getting married and quitting next month.) to take maggie to the airport in osaka. we took the train to sannomiya and a bus to the airport. i had macdonalds for the first time in a very long time at the airport ... i had a chicken burger and fries and it was delightful. maggie was really sad to leave and i was weirded out because it meant i was teaching classes on my own now and actually in Japan.
we got home late from the airport and i don't think i did much but read - i finished out (it was really scary at the end and i'm not sure i liked how it ended) and now i'm reading hunters and gatherers which is really good but im almost done so im thinking i might read the brothers karmokov yet to evenly distribute my different types of lit.
so then i had my first week of classes on my own. it went ok ...i think only one kid cried and the moms were a big help in the baby classes ... i keep singing all the tunes wrong but the moms know everything so they help me out. my kids are really nice ... even the older kids ... there are only a few that have it in for me and some of the kids are really sweet ( i got my first present from a student from by way of a box of chocolates for valentines day) from this little boy i have on tuesdays and he always brings this abc vehicle book that we read and he spent like 7 years in canada ... i think in like burlington or brampton or something ...he always has a canadian flag key ring on his bag.
teaching is cool but its alot more work than sitting at the desk at the hosptial ever was ....some of my student don't want to say anything so i act silly and make them play chardes and they laugh and sometimes it is difficult to think of all these activities and fun things to do to keep them amused and sometimes it is hard to think of how to explain things...but its cool. The hours are long but it is keeping me happy.
My co-workers are super cool ... i love mamiko (my manager) cause she is awesome and Ayako who i have been spending like every weekend with and Nami and Chika are really cool too except they are both leaving in the next couple of months which is sad but it happens to the best of us.
Me and Ayako and nami went out for dinner after work one night to this little restaurant/bar that was a complete hole in the wall and there was this really drunk businessman and he kept giving us candy and like these little toys... it was pretty strange. We had these little rolls of goat chese wrappd in procuitto with a slice of avacado on top that was like so yummy and this strange little curry soup concoction and i tried a pretty much raw egg. they put eggs oneverything here and alot are mostly raw... again they really like the gooey texture but me not so much.
okay so what is next?
that weekend (which would have have been feb 10 and 11th ) I went to dinner in Sannomiya with ayako and met a bunch of her friends on Sunday night. I went to Sannomiya early on Sunday... cause i had gotten the knack of taking the train by then!!! ...and walked around for a good long while. I must say wandering around and exploring in Japan is utterly fantastic. there is nothing that i think i love more than wandering around by myself sometimes (well maybe being cozy and reading a book and dancing with friend are up there to but wandering is definately up there with one of the things that makes me that makes me happiest) especially when there are good things to see. its unbelievable.
Kobe is a super super cool city. I think i love it. there are these big fancy shopping malls and then there are these arcades that are semi outside with swarms of people walking around and there are all these really little parisian looking little cafes that have wonderfully delicious and delectable cakes and pasteries in them where i have made it a priority to go and read in. and the two different sides of the train station that you can get on are like two completely different sides of the sannomiya. on the one side is this big meg ryan billboard and it feels a little more nitty gritty than the other side which seems a little more big city fancy with a big concert hall and all.the other side has all these little street with big neon signs and these little aracdes... its absolutely marvolous to say the least. so i wondered around for awhile, ate a bag of the really scrumptions cookies went through the department stores which are shopping malls with all of these little open stores and it is all designer labels...my first close encounter with marc jacobs, i got this little shirt dress at this japanese label that was playing really good music. leat to say i say many things to covet.so around 7 pm i met ayako outside on the street where a band was playing where she led me to a traditional japanese restaurant in a little allyway. luckily i didn't wear my holey socks because i had to take off my shoes (i make sure not to wear the holey ones wherever i might have to take off my shoes which means i really need some new socks) it was family style so i tried a little of everything..sashami and other stuff. her friends don't really know english that well but she made it seem we wouldn't be able to communicate at all, but i would have to sit there miming. but they could say some things and they understood alot because everyone had studied english in junior high, high school, or at an outside english school. i was loved because i could speak english everyone wanted to talk to me...they just wanted me to talk so that they could listen to me, it was awesome! i don't think i have every felt so popular in my entire life. her friends are all so nice. i think it was one of the only times i have ever been in a group setting and not felt awkeard or shy at all and didn't sit there quietly staring at people but was actually involved in conversations and human interaction and stuff (well ayako was doing alot of translating but you know what i mean). it was really really cool i felt more relaxed than usual not that i didn't enjoy sitting and staring at people. so we all drank and where merry and one of her friends and her boyfriend drove us home at the end of the night and i promptly fell asleep.
on monday i wanted to go to the hundred yen store (or the dollar store in canada) so i took the train to akashi (a bigger city than okubo is a prefecture or suburb of) and found the hundred yen store where i wasted away hours (or at least one) and bought the store out. first minor crisis: i spent every last cent that i had in the hundred yen store and japan is a cash based society...most places don't take bank or credit cards. and bank machines close at certain times...they aren't open all night and they aren't everywhere like in canada and they aren't open on the weekend sometimes. so i didn't have any money on me so i couldn't buy a train ticket to go meet ayako in kobe like i was supposed to or go home to okubo. so i started to freak out a little bit but i did my best to remain calm...deep breaths constanly telling myself it was okay, remembering what david told me which was, "sister don't freak out if you get lost (or stranded in this case) just think of it as an adventure at leat thats what i do". little steps to maintaining ones grasp on reality and working your way to a sensible and rational solution otherwise not ending up in a corner crying and whispering wild and frantic messages of wanting ones mommy. so i went to the bank i remember seeing but it was closed for cleaning. it being sunday and all, i called ayako but she didn't answer, i went to the train station and walked around but couldn't find any machine. i checked if the train station ticket buying machines took cards but they didn't. i checked if there was another ticket counter but there wasn't, so i went to the train station mall to ask information but she didn't speak very much english at all. so she gave me some directions but of course we all know i suck at directions. so i had no idea what she was talking about so i ended up just walking around the train station in circles and finally found a little place that looked like the bank machine place in okubo and i went in and there were bank machines! they were all in japanese (the ones at my bank have has an english funtion) so i made some guesses and it all went well and i got some money! yay!! salvation!!
throughout this time i was supposed to be on the train to kobe to meet ayako to make valentines cakes with her neices and nephews for her boyfriend. so she called me and i tried my best to relay my angst and relief (although i don't think i came across very well) and i told her that i was on my way. so i got one the train and met ayako in kobe where she was waiting for me to take me to her house with her 2 little neices and nephews in tow.
her neices and nephews are adorable. they were shy with me like two seconds and the next thing we were running around the grocery store and i was lifting them in the air (rocket ship jumps...they're pretty popular with the kids). ayako lives with her family up the mountain and her neices and nephew don't speak any english so the whole way there we looked through a food magazine and i pointed to things to ask them if they liked it and they nodded yes or no. after grocery shopping we went to ayakos house and i met her mom who also doesn't speak any english or at least no to me (people are very shy to speak english to an english person) and her grandmother who kept saying all these things to me in japanese but seemed very sweet. so we cut out heart shaped pasteries and helped the kids help ayako make the little cakes and her nephew played wii. i tried boxing and i wasn't too bad and they made me a little wii person who was a pretty funny looking version of myself. here neices and nephews are really sweet and friendly and i had so much fun playing with them and her mother and grandmother are really sweet and i met her two brothers for a little bit and her dad and her suster in law and everyone is super nice. her family is realy cool and it was nice being with a family again cause well you know i like families. i let the kids play with my ipod and take pictures with the camera they seemed quite inthralled for a little while...they are really cute and i felt okay and at home there it wa really good. ayako and her mom and her sister in law made us dinner and it was a variatable feast. we all sat at the table on cushions on the floor and we had little bowls of rice and there was fried chicken balls, and two kinds of little meat balls, curried shrimp, liver, these rally salty pickeled plums, their version of pickles which look like cloves of garlic and this gooey mushed up mountain potato stuff, amoung other things and i tried everything...the mountain potato was a little gooey for my liking but it was okay on rice, the plums were much to salty but that's cause i just took a bite but everyone else poured hot green tea on their rice and mixed in a bit of the plum and made a soupesh sort of thing, and i'm not gonna lie i did not like the liver at ll although the kids loved it, but everything else was great. it was my first home cooked meal. i also ate dried squid on a stick as a predinner snack which i thought tasted pretty funny but the kids gobbled it up. i also go to see their shrine to their grandfather who passed away a few years ago where they offer rice and stuff which was pretty cool. after giving many piggy back rides i was quite tired and i declined ayakos offer to go to karaoke with her friend and she took me to the kobe station where i got cunfused as to what trin to take after telling her boyfriend that i knew the trains like the back of my hand by now and had to call her to figure it out. ayako is wonderfull. she is going to get married to her boyfriend in september so they are just tring to save up for that and they are going to move into another house that there parents own really close by. ayako is very excited that ikea is opening here so we are going to have an ikea trip so that we can buy some new furnishing for her new house and she has already invited me to her wedding and i told her i would do anything i could to help and we might travel a little bit together if we geth the chance. all the people are really good people and i am really thankful and happy. i love japan because they have been so cool to me.so after a spendid day at ayakos i went home and although i intended to go right to sleep i gathered up all my booty, spread out the spoils of the day on the floor
and preceded to spen half the night making valentines that none of you will recieve for many months most likely.
No comments:
Post a Comment