長岡市の冒険

New Blog

2010-09-08T13:07:00.002+09:00

In case you didn't get the message, I've been writing on a new blog for a while now.

It's here: Adventures in Nagoya.

Shall We Dansu?

2010-04-15T21:35:00.002+09:00

As you all know, Dustin and I will soon be wed. We decided to brush up on our dancing skills for the reception, since we'll be on the dance floor all by ourselves for the longest three minutes of our lives. Now, I love to dance... at dance parties, where the lights are low, the music is fast, and no one is one hundred percent sober. Despite my love for both music and dance parties, I have long come to terms with the fact that I have little to no rhythm. I'm a fan, but I could never ever be a musician. It's just not in my veins.

I can only remember taking one dance class in my life. It was an Irish dance class, and I only took the lessons because my best friend in junior high school was really into Irish dance, and she looked so cool when she would practice in front of me. So, obviously, I wanted to look equally as cool. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out and I quit before the recital, because the thought of going on stage with my skills was anything but appealing.

I didn't really know what to expect, but I knew it was probably a good idea to take some kind of dance lessons unless I wanted to subject my guests to watching Dustin and I slowly sway from side to side for three whole minutes. I used the amazing people at the International Affairs Center in our local Civic Center as a resource to help me research the possibilities in Nagaoka. We went with the cheapest option, but the minimum class size was 4. So, I recruited my boss and his fiancé, who are getting married a few weeks after us. They didn't really know how to slow dance either. We didn't exactly discuss what kind of dance we wanted to learn beforehand, but both couples agreed to bring in a CD of the songs to which we want to dance.

When we arrived for our first lesson, we were greeted by a tall, elegant man with perfect posture who glided towards us and dipped in a very un-Japanese bow to introduce himself. We exchanged names, and he wrote three out of the four of our names down; Kei, my boss's fiancé is Japanese, so her name was easy enough to commit to memory. He asked us what type of dance we wanted to learn: mambo, salsa, tango, foxtrot? Ummm... we all looked at each other bewildered. I asked Kei, "What is slow dancing called in Japanese?" She didn't know, but she told him something along the lines of, "We just want to learn some steps to dance to some slow songs at our weddings." He looked both confused and annoyed.

I handed over my CD. He put it on, and said, "This is very slow." So... he sped it up, and it didn't sound like the song to which I wanted to dance at all. But he started teaching us some steps. Luckily, dance terms are mostly in English, and the other words he used most frequently were words and phrases I've learned long ago: left, right, woman, man, you can do it. What we didn't understand, Kei attempted to translate, although she didn't always understand what he was saying in Japanese.

By the end of the first lesson, Dustin was ready to trade me in for a new dance partner, because I do not know the meaning of the word "follow." Try as hard as I may, I cannot help leading. I try to let my mind go blank and let him lead me around the dance floor, but at some point in the journey, I've become the one steering us forward. How do you learn not to lead?

We went back for 5 more dance lessons, one half hour session per week. Our instructor was amazed at our lack of progress. The second lesson was spent reviewing and trying to re-teach what was covered in the first lesson. The third lesson began with a new step, but we'd all forgotten the steps from the first two lessons, so he had to go over those again, and by that time, the lesson was over. The fourth and fifth lessons were much of the same, but he taught us a twirl right at the end of the fifth lesson.

For our last lesson, we spent 15 minutes re-learning the twirl and the steps we'd still never mastered from that first lesson. Then, our instructor looked at his hand (where he always had us foreigners' names written), and said, "Deena, you must teach something something something Dasuteen." I knew that I understood most of what he'd said. It was in Japanese, but I could have sworn I heard "feerings," which didn't sound very Japanese. I just stared at him with an expression of confusion. He then began slapping Dustin's shoulder and saying, "No, no, no." Dustin and I looked at each other, but neither of us understood what was going on. So, our instructor just began slapping Dustin more vigorously. At this point, I called Kei over to translate. She said, "Um, he wants you to teach Dustin about your feelings." Wah? We couldn't quite figure out what that means... but Dustin and I began to hold ourselves with more proper postures, and that seemed to satisfy him. I knew it would have taken many many years for me to teach Dustin about my feelings, and dance class was not the proper place to do it; trust me, I've been working on it for the past three, and we're still basically somewhere in the midst of lesson one.

It was sad to end our Japanese dance lessons. The saddest part was that we haven't really learned how to dance, and we'll be doing it so very soon. Hopefully, I'll have had enough champagne to take the edge off, and I won't be worrying about leading us into the nearest table full of guests. I might even be so giddy with the excitement of it all that I actually let Dustin lead for once. If you are at our wedding and you see Dustin whispering sweet nothings to me during our first dance, he's probably saying, "slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, slow, and corner, corner, slow, slow..."

Sayonara Nagaoka

2010-04-15T21:17:00.004+09:00

This will be my last time writing to you from Nagaoka. Dustin and I leave for Nagoya on Monday. We'll be insanely busy finishing up the packing, cleaning, and partying that needs to be done before that, but I wanted to spend a little time to give my final thoughts on Nagaoka.

It's been a long, cold year and a half. I never expected Dustin could convince me to stay more than a year, but for some reason, I just couldn't imagine leaving when it came time to renew our contracts. Now, we know we'll be here at least until May 2011, and even longer if Dustin gets into a Japanese graduate school. Now that we are closing an important chapter of our lives, our introduction to Japan, I would like to reflect on all of the good things about my life in Nagaoka that I expect I will miss.

-all the really interesting people, foreign and Japanese

-the delicious koshi hikari rice that comes from Niigata-ken

-how inexpensive everything is (well... compared to the rest of Japan at least)

-how easy it is to get from one end of the city to the other on a bike alone

-the train rides

-teaching the cutest little babies and kids

-only having to work between 2 and 5 hours per day

-being able to wear jeans and a t-shirt every day of the week

-being able to sleep in until 11:00 a.m. most mornings

Although there are a lot of things to be thankful about in the life I'm about to leave behind, there are many many things I am looking forward to about this new life I'm about to start in Nagoya.

-warmth

-four seasons

-sunshine

-museums, live music venues, yoga studios, and all kinds of interesting things to do with my time

-Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern cuisines' availability

-subway rides

-a consistant schedule

-learning about the Japanese public school system

-seeing the same students multiple times a week

We're getting married in two weeks and one day. We'll be in America in a week and two days. We'll be in our new apartment in Nagoya in 3 short days. AH! I can't believe it. I've changed our contact address on the right hand side of this blog. If you plan on sending anything to us from now on, please send it to this address. If you send me anything after the wedding, please address it to Dana Asby, because that'll be my name after May 01!

Dustin and I won't have internet access from April 19-April 24. I can still check facebook and gmail on my phone, but Dustin has a bit more difficulty with that, so we might be a teensy bit less available in the next week. But don't fret, we'll be home sooner than you know it !

I won't be writing again on this blog, but I have set up a new blog, and once we get to Nagoya, I'll start posting there. Perhaps more frequently than this blog turned out to be, but no promises. It's here: Adventures in Nagoya.

Long Time No See

2010-03-07T20:19:00.002+09:00

It's been quite a while since my last post.

Dustin and I went home and saw quite a few of you over the holidays. It was really amazing. We had so much fun. I wanted to stay even longer! I ate so many burritos, got a bunch of wedding planning done, and had many good times with lovely friends. I can't wait to get back to the U.S.A. for the wedding in May!

Since we returned in January, things have been exciting and busy. January flew by filled with lots of work, work, and more work... and a bit of snowboarding for Dustin. February brought even more snowboarding for Dustin, and even more work for both of us. I was busy with wedding planning, but our friend Ian came to visit at the end of the month, and brought a friend, so I took a break.

Ian, and his friend, Austin, joined Dustin and I for a three day weekend in Nagano, a city in the prefecture south of us. You may remember that the Winter Olympics were held there a few years back. We bypassed the tours of the Olympic sites, and headed to the mountain instead.

Dustin and Austin hit the slopes immediately. Ian and I opted to meet some of my friends in Matsumoto city where we saw some amazing art work by Yayoi Kusama. Later, we headed to Matumoto Castle, and climbed some extremely steep and slick stairs in slippers. It was a feat. After the castle, we stopped by a very interesting Ukiyo-E Museum, where we saw famous Japanese wood block prints. We were presented with a strange slide show by the curator of the museum. It included explanations of the patterns of the kimonos, which was understandable, but the show got weird when the curator mentioned that stripes represented the African devils. After that, we mentioned how bad slavery was while referencing an eighteenth century map, and assuring us that Obama would bring world peace through nuclear disarmament. It was... enlightening.

The next morning, Ian, Austin, and I headed to Obuse. We saw some temples, one of which had an amazing painting of a phoenix by Hokusai on the ceiling. Near one of the temples was an incredible tofu restaurant. We enjoyed a decadent five course meal of tofu. We had tofu steak, green tea flavored tofu, tofu salad, and tofu pudding, among other types of tofu. It was delicious. After the tofu fest, we headed to the "edo style town recreation." We kept looking around for it, but just couldn't find it. When I finally asked someone where it was, they let me know that we were in the middle of it. It wasn't exactly authentic. We saw a small Hokusai museum that some of his later brush paintings rather than the wood block prints for which he is famous.

We were staying in Yudanaka, a cute little mountain town that had lots of onsen, including an onsen just for the snow monkeys. Austin, Ian, and I went to a small, secluded onsen at the top of a mountain. It was a cloudy day, so we didn't see the sunset, but the sky was a million colors of blue as it turned to night. Looking out at the mountains, it was the most peaceful thirty minutes of my life.

We met a really interesting girl from Hong Kong via Canada. We went to dinner and played cards with her that night. The next morning, she joined us for a trek to the monkey park. We walked up the mountain and saw the monkeys lounging in the onsen. I expected to see more monkeys and less tourists, but the ratio was more like 5 tourist: one monkey. Everyone was huddled around the tiny onsen with giant camera lens snapping away. Most of the monkeys were searching for food outside of the onsen. I bent down to take an up close and personal shot of one of those monkeys, but he felt threatened and attacked me. It was terrifying. After that, I was ready to go.

We strolled through the cute "onsen town" in Yudanaka. There are nine onsen in this area, and it is said that you get good luck if you visit all nine. We didn't have time to visit any of them, unfortunately, because we had a train to catch.

We caught the train to Nagano city, and headed to the Zenkoji temple. It's famous for housing an ancient golden Buddhist image. The original is never shown, but a recreation is shown every seven years. Amazingly, we happened upon the temple, right before closing time, on the very day that it was shown. Dustin and I followed the crowd of people and sat down on some tatami mats listening to a monk chant. Suddenly, a curtain raised for about 10 seconds. All I saw was a golden blur. I bought a stamp of the image afterwards and discovered what it must have looked like. We assured our place in the pureland by touching a sacred key underneath the golden image in the middle of this dark tunnel underneath the temple. It was supposed to be enlightening, but I suppose my mind was too preoccupied. I almost missed the key. I had to turn back and really search for it, but my hand did graze it eventually.

After trying miso ice cream, miso onigiri, and a lovely rice pudding type drink, we headed back to the station to make our way home from our little vacation. It was a really nice break. I love traveling and I haven't gotten the chance to do it as much as I would have liked since I came to Japan, so it was lovely to get away for a bit.

I'm glad I enjoyed my vacation, because it was immediately followed by 11 straight days of work! AH! Today is my first day off, and I am exhausted. Part of the long week was by choice, however. On Monday, Dustin and I went to Tokyo to interview for some jobs in Nagoya with our company. The interview was terrifying, because the big boss drilled me about non-existant hypothetical conflicts with my coworkers, and had me demonstrate my poor Japanese ability. Somehow, however, we got the jobs! We'll be moving to Nagoya, the fourth biggest city in Japan, literally right before we come home for the wedding. We will most likely move to Nagoya the day before our plane before for the U.S. leaves. Eeeek.

I'm very excited about this new opportunity. We will be Assistant English Teachers in a single Nagoya high school. That means we will be working with one Japanese teacher every day and see the same students a few times a week. We're very excited to be able to form relationships with our students and see their progress with English. I can't wait to get to Nagoya! It will be much warmer than Nagaoka, and there will be a lot of culture. It's going to be a very happy change in our lives!

The End of a Great Decade

2009-12-07T20:49:00.003+09:00

It didn't cross my mind that this year's New Year's celebration would take us into the next decade until I heard an NPR All Songs Considered show titled "Best Music of the Decade." Since then, I've been noticing loads of "Best ____ of the Decade" lists. Everyone wants to tell you the best movies, news stories, medical breakthroughs, heroes, and on and on.

I tend to think more about the future than the past, but I wanted to take a moment to share the most important moments of this, the most important decade of my life thus far. I was 14 when 2000 began, and I had just moved to Missouri. I wasn't too excited about being in Missouri. I had just begun to get settled in Vancouver, Washington when my parents informed me that we'd be moving to Missouri, a state I knew nothing about. Moving to Missouri turned out to be a great change in my young life. I met so many amazing people and had great opportunities I might not have had otherwise. Though it happened a few months before this decade, it is a very important part of the 2000's.

In the first three years of the decade, I had so many fun times at Liberty High School, but most importantly, I met two wonderful ladies who have been great friends ever since and accompanied me on so many adventures. I'm glad I know you, Lauren and Sam.

Not to discount my high school years, but attending college at Missouri State University was such a life-changing period for me. I know that just about everyone considers this part of their life important, so it's a bit cliche to go on about how university opened me up to so many different opinions, cultures, and people, but it did.

This decade is the decade when I became a vegetarian, and that has been very important to me. Besides making me feel healthier and happier, it has also opened up a whole world of food to me. Before becoming a vegetarian, my cooking skills consisted of opening up a box of Rice-a-Roni and adding butter and water. Since then, things have gotten considerably better, and I can now successfully conjure up a main dish, a side dish, and a salad relatively painlessly. (Though as Dustin would reveal, I usually skip the salad and the side dish and make a really scrumptious main dish, but I CAN make and HAVE made all three.) I even bake now, though I haven't yet mastered meringue. It is a project for the next decade.

In this decade, I have had the amazing opportunity to travel to Europe, twice! Both trips were so amazing and I saw so much, took way too many pictures, saw a slew of musicals, ate a crazy amount of pain au chocolat, and drank a few too many glasses of unbelievable French wine. I had the joy of studying Shakespeare and analyzing the songs of The Beatles in London. And I studied la langue française and French history in France. My professors on both programs encouraged me to begin writing, and it is completely because of them that I did. I caught the travel bug this decade and I don't plan on getting rid of it any time soon.

I've attempted (and not quite succeeded) to learn two new languages in the 2000's, French and Japanese. French was a bit easier to understand and remember than Japanese is proving to be. I've lost much of my French, but at my peak, I was speaking to my French parents about politics and the anatomy of a baguette. Compare that to the most recent conversation I had with some Japanese teenagers during which I got flustered and mistakenly told them I was 14. I've got a long way to go with my Japanese, but I hope that I have not yet reached my peak.

Most importantly, I met my future husband this decade. Nearly 3 years ago, Dustin and I were introduced to each other by my friend and his coworker, Sarah Scharfenberg. After a very fast romance, we moved into a nice little loft in downtown Springfield together, much to the (silent) dismay of our families and friends. Though few people said it, most of the reactions we got when telling people we'd be living together after a few short months of knowing each other was a look that said, "Whoa. That's waaaay too fast." Well, it turns out that our fast paced relationship has lasted the test of time and we're going to tie the knot. It is the first time that I've fallen in love, and that is undoubtedly the best thing about this decade.

And then, of course, we moved to Japan, which has been a grand adventure of its own. Once again, I moved to a strange new land, with a bit of trepidation, and turned out to love it. I doubt that I'll spend the next decade in Japan, but I'm glad I've come to experience this crazy country, and I'm willing to stick around for a while longer.

As with anyone's life, there has been the occasional disappointment and sadness over the past ten years, but this decade has been truly amazing. I've met some of the most important people in my life, and I hope that we will remain important to each other in the next decade. I've discovered some life long loves of my life: vegetarian food, traveling, writing, and Dustin.

Though it's been a great decade, I expect the next decade to be even more important than the last. There are a great many things I wish to do in the next decade:

-have my very own classroom

-continue to see the world

-continue my writing

-go back to France and finish learning French (hopefully with Brigitte)

-become a debt free citizen

-learn to sew and knit and make wearable garments

-have a house with a big garden

-be a mother (but probably in the latter part of the coming decade, so don't get too excited yet)

We'll see how the next decade turns out! Stay tuned.

Happy Holidayssssss

2009-12-07T19:27:00.002+09:00

Dustin and I hosted our very first Thanksgiving feast. As it so often happens, Dustin's birthday fell shortly after the holiday. A few weeks before, he'd told me that he wanted a turkey shaped caked that also tasted like turkey. Little did he know, I had already ordered a bird from a website that Tracey shared with me, and it was due to arrive a few days before our Thanksgiving party.

I know that Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, but all of us English teachers in Japan typically work on Thursdays, so we planned Dustin's birthday party/ Thanksgiving dinner for the following Sunday. After a few rousing games of bowling, we planned on having around 15 people over to our little Japanese apartment for a fabulous feast.

Since I am usually the lone vegetarian at Thanksgiving dinner, I have made the occasional dish to bring to the table, but I have never been responsible for the majority of the meal. Neither Dustin nor I have ever had anything to do with cooking a turkey. Having observed my mother over the years, I understood that you must start the cooking the day before if everything is to be finished in time. I spent most of Saturday night cooking up a storm. I continued in the morning, and somehow finished everything in the nick of time. I made glazed carrots, gravy, stuffing, cheesecake, brownies, and about 3 pounds of garlic mashed potatoes! The gravy was lumpy and the brownies exploded all over the oven, but they were gobbled up nonetheless.

Dustin did the turkey. It was quite a task, with a few problems. First problem, this tiny 3.4 kg turkey was too big to fit in our even tinier Japanese oven. Second problem, our oven is a bit finicky. It never seems to think the suggested amount of time is appropriate; sometimes it thinks 25 minutes should be 40, at other times 5 minutes into a 20 minute cooking time leaves something burnt to a crisp... So we weren't really sure how long it should stay in there.

Dustin solved the first problem by chopping off the wings and legs, and cooking the torso on its own. The second problem was solved by lots of observation. The instructions that came with our roasting bag said to cook it until most of the cooks agreed that it was done, probably between 2.5-3 hours. Well... neither of us knew how to tell if it was done, but it looked brown, so we took it out. And thankfully, it was done. And then the rest of the poor disassembled bird was stuck in the oven, and an hour later, it too was enjoyed by the carnivores in the room. Everyone happily ate the turkey without complaint, but once the guests left, Dustin admitted that it was much drier than the turkey he's used to. It was his first attempt and it was edible, so I declare it a success.

The evening turned out to be another lovely potluck in Japan. We had more dessert than we knew what to do with, but there were very few complaints about that. And our Japanese guests brought sushi, which was a welcome addition to the dinner. Someone even made Sangria! And luckily, our American friends rounded out the dinner with a few other Thanksgiving staples like macaroni and cheese and sweet potato casserole. In a single word, the night was delicious.

And of course, after Thanksgiving the next holiday is... CHRISTMAS! Which I am so very excited about spending in the U.S. that I talk about it far too much these days, so I will refrain from blabbing on and on about all the great fun I will be having in a short week and a half (like eating burritos and seeing the Nutcracker and attending more Christmas "events" than I have ever attended in one year and seeing all of the people I miss the most)!!!

I don't know if any of my faithful readers are familiar with David Sedaris's short story "Me Talk Pretty One Day" from a book of the same name, but I found myself in the midst of a remarkably similar situation the other day. Only we were talking about Christmas traditions around the world in broken Japanese, instead of Easter traditions around the world in broken French.

I have been taking a Japanese class at my local Civic Center since April. Currently, my class consists of me, my American boss, a middle-aged South Korean man who works at a restaurant, a 19 year-old Chinese girl, a middle-aged Chinese woman who I think is a doctor, and a mysterious middle-aged Spanish man from Madrid, who recently joined our class. At the end of each chapter, we take a little quiz that involves filling in the blanks of a story. The one we completed last time was a sort of guess who passage. It was about a man who has a wonderful job where he only has to work one day a year. He wears a red suit, and has white hair. I don't recall what else was in the passage, but I was giggling about half way through having realized that we were talking about Santa Claus here.

After we finished our quiz, my adorable little old Japanese teacher asked, "Who is this?" I said immediately, and a little too enthusiastically, "Santa Claus!" To which one of my Chinese classmates replied, "Who?" Who?!?!? Always prepared, my teacher pulled out a plush Santa and showed it to the Chinese girls who seemed to have recognized the face, but didn't know a thing about him. My teacher starting giving the run down on Santa, and she began by telling us why Santa Claus brings toys to all of the children in the world. She said that Santa Claus is single, but he loves children. I interrupted her to say, "That's wrong. Santa Claus has a wife." My teacher asked her name, and I replied, "Claus San," which could translate to Mrs. Claus or Mr. Claus, so that did nothing to quell her confusion. I broke the normal "Japanese only" rule, and said, "Mrs. Claus" in English.

Being the only American in the room (my boss was absent that day), my teacher felt that I was the authority on Santa Claus, and thus began asking me a multitude of questions about him. "Where does he live?"

"Umm... very north with lots of snow and countryside."

"What does his wife wear?"

"Mr. Santa the same, but dress and glasses."

"Does he have any children?"

"No, but he has many small people friends."

(There was a very confused expression on the face of everyone present at this point.)

Luckily, my teacher understood and said, "Erufu," the katakana version of elf.

Suddenly, the man from South Korea piped up, "Santa Claus very tall. He has blue clothes."

Next the Spanish guy chimed in, "His name is Papa Noel in Spain. We get two days presents. In January, three men put presents in children's shoes."

The Chinese girls continued to insist that they had never heard of this Santa character.

It was a very interesting cultural discussion, but I have a feeling there was an awful lot lost in translation and none of us came away with a complete understanding of the Christmas traditions observed in each others' home countries. Nonetheless, I cannot wait to visit you all in person and talk about all of the things that have been happening that haven't made it to the blog, and hear about your own live in the past year and a half. See you all so very very soon!

Brigitte Invades Japan!

2009-11-20T16:55:00.002+09:00

Last week, we had the great fortune of our very first American visitor. The lovely Brigitte came over to Japan for a week and a few days. I met her in Tokyo for the weekend before she came with us to Niigata-ken.

The week flew by, and unfortunately, Dustin and I both had to work, so it was a bit crazy, but we were so lucky to finally have a visitor. It was great to see a familiar face, and hear what we'd missed after we left Springfield. It was also wonderful to have someone to show around, because we did a few essential Japanese experiences that we rarely make the time for... all in one week.

First, Brigitte and I had an exciting weekend in Tokyo. Since we hadn't seen each other in over a year, the majority of our two days in Tokyo involved lots and lots of talking. In between all of the gabbing, we somehow managed to see the National Museum of Modern Art, visit an old school onsen, eat Indian food twice, do a wee bit of bargain hunting in Harajuku, see a lovely night view of Tokyo from the top of Roppongi Hills Tower, and traverse half of Tokyo on foot.

We both REALLY wanted to see the crazy fashion of the Harajuku girls, but despite having searched for them up and down the streets of Harajuku and running all over Yoyogi Park, we didn't see any of these fashion wonders in their natural environment. We did see two convincing "Harajuku girls," but they were both pretty blonde Westerners. We saw a tamer version of the Harajuku girls we sought out, but they were employees at a store who sold these crazy fashions, so they still didn't feel authentic. Disappointed, we met my friend Ryo at the train station to go to Roppongi for dinner. In the crowd, I spied a girl dressed in all pink, complete with a frilly pink tutu, and topped with a shocking pink bob. In excitement, I exclaimed, "Ryo, look! I found a Harajuku girl!" He looked her up and down and said, "Eh... not quite. She's trying, but..." Apparently, there are still a few Harajuku girls hanging on to this street fashion, and they meet at Harajuku Station around noon on Saturdays and Sundays, but most of the fashion craze ended five years ago. Westerners just clued into this delightful style a little too late. Boo.

Tokyo was fun, but eventually we had to leave for the countryside of Niigata-ken. To lessen the shock of Nagaoka compared to Tokyo, we went straight to Niigata-shi, the biggest city in our prefecture. We met my British friend, Ellen, and my Japanese friend, Kyoko, for lunch at a soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles) restaurant. It was an extremely rainy day, so we decided to do our sightseeing inside. We went to the top of the Toki Messe building, one of the largest in the city. The view wasn't nearly as impressive as the one in Tokyo, but it was interesting nonetheless, because we were right on the coast of the Japan sea. I could see the outline of Sado island in the distant fog.

When you think about Japan, it's pretty hard not to think about video games. They are such a huge part of the modern Japanese culture. I knew Brigitte wasn't too fond of video games, but I thought she should really experience Japanese arcade games. It was a bit of a hard sell, but when I told her that Round 1 had massage chairs, she agreed to give it a try... and she loved it! She had a lot of fun playing all the wacky Japanese video games. And we both relished the chance to use the massage chairs after two days of endless walking.

Once we got back to Nagaoka, we started showing Brigitte the typical Japanese lifestyle in the inaka. We did so much during her week in Niigata-ken. She had the chance to try so many different types of Japanese food, and she liked almost all of them. We went to an izekaiya and did karaoke. We even took her to a Japanese garden in Kashiwazaki where she got to enjoy the lovely fall momiji. At the garden, we did a tea ceremony with my friend Yumi. It was very interesting. We drank from cups that were around 400 years old. Thanks to Yumi's translating, we learned what each slow and calculated movement meant. My legs fell asleep about 15 minutes into it, but it was interesting.

I'm so happy that Brigitte got a chance to visit! It was great fun. You can see all of the pictures on facebook by clicking the new album on the list to the right!

Honeymoon Madness

2009-11-15T16:42:00.004+09:00

A few months ago, a travel agent from Springfield e-mailed me about our honeymoon. Assuming that I'd given her my e-mail address way back when Dustin and I went to a wedding show in Springfield, I excitedly sent her my dream honeymoon and budget and awaited her reply. She got back to me quickly, "excited for the challenge" I was presenting, since we needed to get from Japan to Springfield, MO to (hopefully) Thailand and back to Japan again. AND I needed to be ensured that where we'd be on our honeymoon week, there would be vegetarian food available. I e-mailed with her for about 3 weeks and even had a phone conversation with her, but all of a sudden, she disappeared. Whenever I e-mailed her, an "out of the office" e-mail would be sent to me. I tried calling her a few times, but she never answered. It's been about a month since the last time I had contact with her, and still no word. It's very mysterious.

So, I decided to take the honeymoon planning into my own hands. I began researching resorts on the internet. I quickly discovered that Thailand had plenty of amazing resorts, but they were all out of our price range. Reluctantly, I ditched my dream of honeymooning in Thailand, and started looking at other options in Asia, since we'd have to come back to Japan anyway. I found many more reasonably priced resorts, but when I checked the airfare, it was all outrageous, or it required an extra day of traveling that I wasn't willing to accept.

I'll go ahead and apologize for sounding spoiled, but I really did not want to honeymoon in the Caribbean. Both Dustin and I had been to the Caribbean more than once (and we're very grateful for each opportunity to have done that) and we wanted somewhere new for our honeymoon. I didn't want my honeymoon experience to be tainted by any past vacations' memories, good or bad. The only thing I didn't want more than a Caribbean vacation was one of those cheesy resorts whose commercials you see full of smiling models with a martini in one hand and their sarong waving in the wind in the other hand, like... Sandals for instance.

After weighing the options in nearly every part of the world, and getting really excited about the possibility of honeymooning in Hawaii for a split second (before realizing it was even more expensive than Thailand), we finally settled on... Sandals Grande Ocho Rios in Jamaica. I know what you're thinking, "That is both in the Caribbean and the cheesiest resort you can find." Well, it was a deal we couldn't pass up. It was affordable, and neither of us have been to Jamaica. Plus, we won't lose too much time traveling, since it's so close to the U.S. And it's all inclusive, so all drinks and food is covered, inclusing special vegetarian fare. Our honeymoon will begin shortly after our first day of marriage does, which is something I prefer to spending the first 17 hours of married life on a plane.

Deciding where to go took about 3 hours of "discussion," but actually ironing out all the details and booking our room and flight took twice as long. We started out by calling Sandals to ask about the differences between two rooms we were deciding between. We talked to Arol, a Jamaican gentleman. He made us feel like respectable royalty instead of the young bums we actually are. He called me ma'am and Dustin sir. He insisted we upgrade our room, because we deserved it. He "could tell" Dustin was a man who enjoyed golf, which he is, so he suggested that at some point on the honeymoon, Dustin take some time at the golf course, while I spend the day at the spa. Well, Arol, that sounds like a great idea! We booked our ocean front suite and felt very special and appreciated. As soon as we hung up with Arol, however, Dustin reminded me that Micheal Scott and Jan (from The Office) had gone to Sandals in Jamaica, and I no longer felt very special, but I did laugh for a few minutes.

Next step: plane tickets. We had quite an agenda what with flying into Springfield, MO from Japan, and then to Jamaica, and back to Japan. When I'd looked for one-way flights to the U.S. from Japan 2 months ago, the cheapest I could find was $2,500 each, so I was most nervous about this step. Miraculously, we found tickets for the entire itinerary for less than two grand. Whoo hoo! We'd bought our tickets for our upcoming trip in December from Cheapoair, so I was confident in their ability to provide us with the tickets we wanted. They provided us with more tickets than we wanted. There were so many options. All of them, unfortunately, included an overnight stay on the way back to Japan, because no planes leave Jamaica before 11:00 a.m., and no planes in our price range leave after 5:00 p.m. That meant we could stay at O'Hare in Chicago, JFK in New York, or DFW in Dallas. We looked up all three on a website that rates airports. JFK was voted the dirtiest airport and Chicago got bad marks for friendliness. Dallas didn't have as many amenities as the other two, but it looked the most promising if we were going to have to spend the night on cots in an airport.

I clicked "Buy Ticket" next to the itinerary that included a stop in Dallas, and got a message saying "That ticket is no longer available." Drat. So, I clicked "Buy Ticket" next to the one with a stop in Chicago... same message. Grrrrr. JFK, here we come, ugh... "That ticket is no longer available." WHAT?!?! I tried about 10 flights and all of a sudden, none of them were available. I decided to call the 800 number on Cheapoair's website and see where these tickets suddenly disappeared to.

The friendly phone operator at Cheapoair conducted her business a bit differently than Arol from Sandals had. She made jokes, often at our expense, but there was an amiable tone to our conversation. She congratulated us on our engagement, told us about her mother traveling to South Africa (though I'm not sure why), and joked with us about having to see things for ourselves since we were from "The Show Me State." She did eventually help us find the tickets we wanted in her database. She asked us which flight we wanted and noted that the biggest difference was which airport we'd be staying at. I explained that we'd already researched the three airports and found that JFK was too dirty and Chicago was too mean. Suddenly, her voice lost all of its warmth and friendliness, "What's wrong with New York's airport?" I told her that reviews said that JFK airport was really dirty, and suggested that it probably had more to do with the heavy flow of traffic than anything else. She informed us that she lived 15 minutes from the airport and it was a very nice airport thank you very much.

She then quickly put us on hold, made the reservations, put us on hold a dozen times more, took down our information, and hung up with us. Oops. At least we had our honeymoon all planned out! Or so we thought... When I checked the e-mail confirmation the next morning, I discovered that our friendly phone operator at Cheapoair had reserved a ticket for Dana and Duston. Dustin's name was spelled correctly in all of the Cheapoair customer information, but misspelled with the airline, which meant the ticket was useless for anyone but Duston Asby. NOOOOOOOO!

After speaking with the credit card company and several different men in India for another 3 hours that day, we finally had everything settled. Phew.

In about six months, we'll be flying from Tokyo to Springfield, MO, preparing all the little details I haven't yet anticipated for our wedding, getting married, then flying to Montego Bay, Jamaica for a week, and then flying to Dallas, TX (where we decided to to splurge on a room at the Hilton outside the airport using all the points we'll rack up from our reception), and then finally going back to home sweet home, Japan. It's going to be the busiest, craziest, funnest two weeks of my life. I can't wait! Hooray.

Sado: The Old Japan

2009-10-20T21:52:00.006+09:00

I'm on my very first long term business trip. I'm teaching on Sado Island, an island off the coast of Niigata-ken. In total, it will be seven days, six of which I had to/ have to work. I'm half-way through my business trip. So far it's been... まあまあ (so-so). I loooooooove sleeping in a bed. I didn't realize how much I missed a thick mattress until I spent a few nights on one. I like seeing a new place. I like having piping hot rice and green tea ready for me as soon as I get out of bed. I like getting paid $25 a day to go out to eat. BUT, I don't like being awoken at 5:46 a.m. by noisy construction workers almost every morning. I don't like waiting an hour for the next bus, because there are so few. I don't like not knowing where the heck I am or where in the world I'm going. I don't like not being able to cook. So, there are pluses and minuses to business trips. I'm glad there's usually only an opportunity for one a year, but then again, that option is nice, even if I don't take it again.

The best part of the business trip is the free time. My hotel is a 5 minute walk from the classroom, so the time I usually spend traveling is all mine. It's been nice to be all alone for such long uninterrupted time periods. I've been studying Japanese and reading to my heart's content. After two days of blissful alone time, Dustin joined me for the weekend. I take the blame for our weekend being a bit less eventful than we'd both hoped. I researched all of the possible destinations on Sado and chose the ones that seemed most intriguing to me. Once I got to Sado, I took out a map and marked all of the places I wanted to go. At that point, I realized that all of the things I wanted to see were on completely different parts of the island.

Before I got to Sado, I hadn't realized that it was so enormous. It's about twice the size of the greater Springfield area. That might not seem too big, but when you don't have a car or a bike, it's enormous. I suggested renting a power-bike, but the threat of rain caused us to nix that plan. So, we rode the bus everywhere. But the buses only came once an hour or once every 2 or 3 hours. I'm staying in a central area on the west coast of Sado, but even getting to the northwest coast (a mere thumb print on the map) took almost an hour by bus. We quickly realized we had to prioritize our destinations.

Due to indecisiveness and neither of us admitting that we really didn't care about certain tourist spots until halfway there, we changed the plans a lot. In the end, we ended up spending a good portion of day one figuring out which bus routes we'd need to take to get here, there, and everywhere, and didn't actually end up going to all of those places. We did go to a bunya puppet show. A nice little old lady (who we ran into about a billion times after we met her) was explaining the difference between Osaka bunrakyu puppets and Sado bunya puppets and then the show began. I understood very little of the song that accompanied the performance, so I made up my own story. I shared that story with Dustin after the performance and learned that the puppet I deemed the "lover" was actually the mother. That put a very different spin on the story.

After the puppets, we headed to the Sado Gold Mine. There was a modern tunnel and and Edo era (1600-late 1800) tunnel. We took the Edo course. There were really interesting animatronic models of the workers extracting the gold. Kind of cheesy, but surprisingly interesting. The best part of the experience was the brick of gold in a box with hole big enough to stick your arm through. The challenge was to lift the brick of gold. I watched as an endless line of elderly folks (most of the fellow tourists we've encountered on this trip have been well past retirement age) attempted and failed to pick up the brick. I waited for a short break in the line and rushed over to try my turn, hoping that all the push-ups I've been doing lately would help me out, but I couldn't even make it budge. When Dustin entered the room, I rushed him over to have his turn. He impressed me by picking it right up and lifting it pretty high. All the senior citizens were equally impressed.

After we finished at the Gold Mine, we headed into the nearby town of Aikawa to find a festival I'd read about in the map my boss had given me. Sado is famous for oni daiko (people who dress up as demons and play giant drums), and I was told that they are at virtually every festival on the island. Somehow, Dustin and I convinced ourselves that Kodo, a world famous taiko group who is actually from Sado, were also going to be at this festival. Dustin and I have been to our fair share of festivals, usually in Nagaoka. They often include loads of vendors selling food and drinks, multiple parades and performances, and massive crowds. When we got to Aikawa, it was distinctively quiet. Quieter than a normal city would be festival or not. Hmmm... we went into the local conbini, and I used my excellent (sarcasm) Japanese to ask where the festival was. He responded by pointing across the street, and saying with a laugh "that neighborhood." We left with a puzzled look on our faces and crossed the street, trying to find the festival. Dustin's ears perked up when he heard a flute. We started walking quickly towards the sound of the flute. We crossed paths with a group of taiko drummers accompanied by a couple of samurai and what appeared to be either a god or a demon with a white face mask. They were headed to the nearby gas station. We'd been told that the taiko groups in this town play at different houses as a way of asking for donations for the local shrine (kind of like the Aikawa version of trick-or-treating?), but we hadn't expected them to stop at a gas station.

After that performance, we tagged along to the next spot, but it was pretty much the same as the gas station performance, and we were the only people in the group that weren't wearing a matching festival jacket. Plus, we're white. Needless to say, we stuck out. We weren't too keen on being groupies to this particular drumming clan without seeing the rest of the town's offerings. So, we stopped off to watch a beautiful sunset before setting out again to find the center of the festival. We wanted festival food and crowds and maybe a glass of sake.

We walked up and down the streets. We saw the tell tale lanterns that usually denote a festival, but we couldn't find anything resembling a festival we were accustomed to. We'd asked the Japanese Teacher for the Peppy school on Sado if she wanted to join us, but my phone didn't have any reception in Aikawa, so I didn't really know if she would show up or not. Dustin and I were perplexed. We didn't want to keep following the same taiko group all around town. They were going to visit EVERY house after all. We were just standing on a street corner wondering what to do, when Hiromi (the Sado JT) suddenly appeared. She'd seen us standing on this corner and gotten off the bus to join us. We shared our confusion with her, hoping she would have some answers. She grew up on Sado, but she's always lived in Sawata, 15 minutes away by taxi, so she had no idea what the traditions of Aikawa are. She'd never been to this festival. It was shocking to me that two towns so close could have little to do with each other.

Being the helpful Japanese woman she is, Hiromi stopped the first Aikawan she found and asked him for the lowdown on the festival. Now, asking for help in Japan is a risky thing, because some people (especially people of a rather advanced age) will give you far too much help. Dustin and I had experienced that earlier in the day with a nice little old lady who'd overheard us bickering about which bus would take us to Aikawa. She not only pointed us in the direction of the bus, but she made us sit right next to her on the bus and commentated our 30 minute ride together. She told us the names of all the rock formations and frequently asked us questions that were drowned out by the bus's loud effort to make it up the mountainside. We appreciated the help, but it's more work than you realize to keep a grateful smile plastered on your face while trying to think of something appropriate to say in Japanese for half an hour.

The older gentlemen Hiromi was interrogating had obviously been partaking in sake for some time already, so he was even more helpful than he might have been pre-sake. He showed us some pictures of the taiko group he'd taken on his cell phone. He told us all about their route and how all of the taiko groups would meet on the main street in town at 10:00 (wrong), and that the oni daiko would be coming down the street shortly (wrong), and that we could find festival food at the end of that street (wrong). If he had told us these things directly, I could understand how certain ideas could have been lost in translation, but no, he gave all these bits of information to Hiromi, a Japanese woman, in Japanese. And Hiromi, who has spent 3 years in a Canadian university and has been teaching English for over 3 years, has near perfect English. Once we got over the disappointment of not being able to see the oni daiko or eat festival food, we set out in search of any food. We stopped in several izakaiya, but they were all closed on account of the festival, yet there was no one on the streets. It was nearly a ghost town, aside from the distant pounding of drums.

Another helpful older Japanese person directed us to about a million different places that might serve vegetables (since my dietary restrictions were a major factor in where we could eat in Hiromi's eyes), we finally found one that was indeed open. We tried to make our meal last since it was 6:00 and the true climax of the festival where the different taiko groups meet on the main street wasn't until 9:00. Dinner didn't quite last 3 hours, but we stayed there for quite a while before finding a choice spot on the main road, where we waited and waited and waited for the drummers to arrive. People started pouring onto the street out of nowhere. I have no idea where they'd been hiding all this time. Finally, the first group (the one we'd unintentionally been following all night long) showed up.

We asked Hiromi whether the guy with the white face was a demon or a god, but she didn't know, so she went to a nearby shop to inquire. I felt so bad that she was asking all of these questions and then translating just for our benefit. The drunk guy from earlier in the night had even asked if she was our guide... but she is just such a nice and helpful person. We discovered that he was neither a god nor a demon. She said, "He's not such a bad guy, but he has to make it difficult for the gods to pass by." Basically, the purpose of this festival is to raise money to offer to the gods in exchange for a good harvest. The struggle against the guy in the white mask is supposed to represent the idea that good things require a bit of hardship, so at harvest time, everyone must work really hard. We had waited around doing nothing for about 4 hours, but the climax of the festival was worth it.

The guy in the white mask did a really interesting dance, accompanied by the samurai while the other taiko groups tried (and all inevitably succeeded) to push past him. It was so traditional and full of meaning and emotion. Everyone was unbelievably into it, despite the fact that they've seen it every year of their life. After the last group had pushed through, two of the groups seemed to be fighting. We thought it was a part of the performance, until people started moving out of the way and everyone was shouting, but not in a festive manner. I looked up and noticed that the massive fight was moving right towards me, but directly in front of my face was the samurai's blade. AH! Luckily, a more leveled headed drummer broke up the fight. Only one guy showed signs of violence with a cut eye and a bloody shirt, but it was pretty intense.

We went to the Sado Legends Museum today. Sado was the place where Japanese intellectuals were banished in the 8th century. This kitschy museum told the stories of Sado's great legends (an emperor, the priest who popularized Buddhism in Japan, a healer who could make it rain, etc.) through impressively life-like robots. They were really neat.

I like Sado. It's quaint. It's quiet (aside from the two older gents on the other side of hotel room wall, that is). It's traditional. It's really beautiful, especially now that the leaves have just begun to change. I'm enjoying my little mini-vacation. I am increasingly realizing how essential is it for me to leave Nagaoka every once in while, or I will go crazy. I think this means that Nagaoka is not the city I'm intended to live in forever. I wonder if I will ever find that place... I wonder if anyone's attention span has lasted long enough to get to the end of this long-winded post... ごめんね... sorry!

p.s. More new Sado pictures are in the new album, which you can click on at the top right of this page: Sado Living.

わたちたちは日本に一年にいます！ or We've been in Japan for a year! (or at least I think that's what that says)

2009-10-06T20:28:00.004+09:00

Yes, we have passed our first year milestone in Japan without much fuss. We had officially been on Japanese soil as of Saturday, September 26. I kind of wanted to celebrate with a one-year anniversary party, but that date happened to coincide with the going away party of two of our friends, so we let it pass by quietly.

Nothing much is new across the ocean. We've had a new prime minister for some time now, but I've seen no noticeable differences. There's a typhoon on its way over here this week, but then again, there was supposed to be a typhoon in August, but that never arrived in Niigata-ken.

It's getting colder, which I don't like, but that means more drinking hot tea and staying in trying to keep warm and just watching movies or reading, which I do like. A friend recently told me that there are more pachinko parlors in Niigata-ken than any other prefecture in Japan, because there isn't really much to do in the winter months. I guess when you get covered in snow walking from your front door to the car (assuming you're lucky enough to have one in those chilly months), there's little motivation to do anything but sit and stare at a machine feeding it tiny balls. Dustin can't wait for the first snow, so he can use his new snowboard (which he will get for his birthday in about a month and a half).

I'm counting down the days until December 17. I can't wait for a visit to the States. I've lived abroad before, but never for more than 6 months. I'm overjoyed to be able to spend 3 weeks at home in December and I can't wait to come back in 5 months for the wedding. Yay! There are a few new pictures in the "Last Days of Summer" album if you want to see what exactly we've been doing since I last posted.

A Trip to the Onsen

2009-09-18T10:58:00.002+09:00

Last weekend, Dustin and I went on a little mini-trip. We rode the Banetsu Monogatari, an old steam train that ran from the 1940's until the late 1960's that has been restored and makes two runs a week these days.We went to Aizu-Wakamatsu, a little town in the prefecture to our north. Our final destination was Higashi Yama Onsen Machi (East Mountain Hot Springs Town).

The 3 hour ride to Aizu was quaint. The countryside we passed on the way was beautiful. They held janken (rock, paper, scissors) tournaments in which the winners won little buttons and other souvenirs. I did feel a bit guilty about the environmental consequences of our ride when I saw the black smoke billowing out of the train. I felt even worse when our ride was finished and I saw the men covered in black shoveling coal into the train's bowels.

At the Aizu train station, we found a nice little map with different options for lunch. Most of the choices involved ramen or sushi, which is pretty typical for any Japanese town. At the very bottom of the map, however, as far away as you could get from the station, there was a little icon of a radish. I looked at the key and saw that a radish indicates something to do with vegetables. Dustin knew a few more of the kanji in the description. He determined that this particular restaurant had something to do with earth vegetables. Hmmm... an organic vegetarian restaurant in this small Japanese town? That would be incredible! I haven't seen a single vegetarian restaurant since my time in Japan began.

I warned Dustin that it might be far away and since it was Sunday, it could be closed. But he was nice enough to put those worries aside and accompany me to this potential vegetarian restaurant. From our experience, maps in Japan tend to look a lot bigger than the area they represent. And when you ask for directions, if someone tells you it's a 10 minute walk, it's usually more like 5 minutes. Despite the fact that the restaurant looked like it was about a half-hour walk from the train station, we expected it to be about 10 minutes away.

We set out with our map and walked and walked and walked. It seems this map was accurately scaled. About 25 minutes after we began our trek, we came across the "restaurant" we had been looking for all that time. Only... it wasn't a restaurant. It was a grocery store. Oops. We had passed one of those about 5 minutes from the station. They did have a really yummy pumpkin croquette and a super cheap nashi (Asian pear), but I don't know if it was worth the nearly half-hour walk.

During our journey we explored Aizu and decided that there's not too much there, so we set out immediately for the onsen. The little town where our hotel and onsen was located was up in the mountains. It was so quiet and peaceful. Nothing was there but various onsen, a few shrines, a tiny little grocery store, a liquor store, and curiously, a cork gun shooting range.

Our weekend was full of relaxing. When the cute little Japanese girl in her full kimono and accouterments took our bags to our room at the hotel, she served us a formal tea. After tea, we had a bit of time to enjoy our gorgeous room and win a few prizes at the shooting range before the fancy dinner. I can't even count how many courses were in this meal. Dustin loved it. It was all very traditional Japanese food. I didn't find much on the menu to suit me, but what I did like was very nice. I had brown rice for the first time in Japan. It was the most delicious rice I've ever had. I'm definitely going to try to find some in Nagaoka.

After dinner, we reserved one of the onsen for an hour. Normally, there is a female onsen and a male onsen, and the two sexes don't mix, but at our hotel, you could pay a bit extra and be alone with your partner for a while. It was really romantic and completely peaceful. We spent most of our time in the outside portion of the onsen. The nights are starting to get cool, so it was really lovely to feel the cool breeze and be in this piping hot, fresh water surrounded by trees and a stream and nature in general.

We had a long night's rest on very comfy futons (which were magically put out for us when we returned from dinner). In the morning, the breakfast we were served was enormous. It was pretty strange to have so many vegetables for breakfast, but it was filling and tasty, so I have no complaints. We had just enough time for one little dip in the onsen before check-out. I guess most people take their morning bath before breakfast, because both Dustin and I had our onsen to ourselves. While I was sitting outside under a little gazebo looking around at the trees and listening to the birds, I felt truly alone for the first time in about a year. Japan is so full of people that it's really difficult to find a place to be by yourself. Since we moved to the busiest corner of Nagaoka, I hear people out and about at every hour of the day and night. Even if I am alone, I don't quite feel like I am. It was incredibly calming to just sit in that water and be.

But alas, the relaxation had to come to an end eventually. We checked out, but had a few hours before our train left, so we decided to explore Higashi Yama Onsen Machi a bit more. We climbed up the steep stairs to find an uncared for shrine covered in bugs and mold. There was a playground in the yard that looked like it hadn't been used for a decade. We also saw gigantic spiders on our walk around town. Dustin was taking a picture of one and he told me to put my hand by the web for scale. I cautiously obliged, but he felt that my hand was not close enough to the spider, so he pushed it a little closer, and then closer still, and then too close. My hand hit the web and sent the spider into a fury. When I saw him move, I ran. It was terrifying.

During our adventure around Aizu the day before, we'd passed a Thai restaurant that was closed at the time, but I'd written down the phone number and confirmed that they were open for lunch Monday. We planned on lunching there before our train left. I was so excited for some yummy Thai food. After figuring out which bus to take to get to the center of town, we got off near the restaurant, sat down, and were given the options for lunch: chicken or fish. We explained that I was a vegetarian and asked if there was anything besides these two options, and the waitress said, "No. At lunch, everyone orders this one or this one." Wah. So, we didn't have Thai after all. We ate at a cheap chain Italian fast food place that was tasty, but not Thai.

I was jonesing for some ice cream, and I saw soft serve in about 4 or 5 shops along the street, so we set off in search of the perfect cone. I didn't really want plain vanilla, but that's all we could find, so I settled on it. It was a tasty treat, but I still wished I had found something more exciting. After my ice cream, we decided to head towards the station to catch our train. We got about one block from the shop where I'd bought my ice cream when we found a café that offered very interesting soft serve: black sesame, sweet potato, green tea, edamame, and others. I cursed myself for settling on vanilla. I had been wanting to try black sesame seed soft serve since I heard of its existence in Japan, but I'd never come across it in Japan. Dustin wanted to try one of these crazy ice creams, so we went inside. Knowing how strong my desire to taste the black sesame flavor was, he ordered it. Just outside the shop, he took a lick. He didn't like it. I took a lick. I didn't like it. Well, we tried it.

All in all, a very nice little weekend full of food and baths. I came back quite relaxed, but I wish it could have lasted longer. Luckily, a few Japanese holidays line up nicely this year to create the rare "Silver Week." We have a four day weekend starting Sunday! Dustin is going camping on the beach, but it's way to cold for me. Instead, I am going to join two of my friends, who are Muslim, in celebrating the end of Ramadan by eating some yummy Syrian food at their feast. Other than that, I see lots of sleeping, reading, and movie watching in my near future. It's been an extremely busy summer, and I could definitely use a vacation spent almost entirely in my apartment.

You can see some pictures of our weekend by clicking on the new photo album at the right!

And IIIIIIIIIII Will Always Loooooove Yooouuuuu!

2009-09-05T00:35:00.003+09:00

Whitney Houston has a new album out. They were talking about it on NPR, which I was listening to via a podcast while I was preparing for my lessons today. They compiled a nice little medley of some of her most popular songs from the late 80's/early 90's. When I was 5ish, I think I loved Whitney Houston. I remember occasionally hearing some of her songs in the car, because my dad had a Whitney tape that was occasionally popped in the tape deck. I knew all of the words, so I think that qualifies my feelings towards Whitney's music as positive (at least my 5-year self's feelings towards her).

There is a certain song that sticks out in my mind when I think of Whitney Houston. It's probably the same song that sticks out in most people's minds when they hear her name, so I know I'm not special, BUT the reason this song holds such a strong memory for me is perhaps different than the reason others remember "I Will Always Love You." As many of you can recall, Whitney Houston starred in the movie The Bodyguard, which apparently "received negative to mixed reviews" according to Wikipedia. (I mistakenly thought that it was semi-autobiographical, but I fact checked and cleared up that long-held, but seldom pondered misconception. While on Wikipedia, I learned many other interesting facts about The Bodyguard.)

Laugh if you must, but I cannot count how many times I have seen this movie. It's not the undeniable chemistry between Whitney and Kevin Costner that kept me coming back time after time. It was sheer lack of options. My grandma had very few videotapes at her house. My sister and I spent a fair amount of time at her house during summer "vacations" and family trips. I don't know if we always begged to watch movies or if she always had one playing, but I associate time spent in her house as a child very strongly with movies. And by movies, I mean the same four movies over and over and over and over again.

From the time I was around 5 until I was 15 or so, I don't think my grandma bought any new movies. It's possible that she owned more than four movies, but the only ones I remember seeing on an endless loop were (in order of most watched) Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman, The Bodyguard, and Cutting Edge. What? Were you expecting a 5 year old to watch Aladdin or something equally as immature and childish (I love Aladdin, by the way). Coincidentally, the last time I was at her house cleaning up a bit, I noticed that she had several boxes of brand new DVDs, some still in their original shrink wrap. I guess she was just waiting for us to stop visiting as regularly to update the movie collection.

Anyhow. That was a very long background story about what I really want to tell you about... Back to me in my classroom in a suburban Japanese town that doesn't see a heck of a lot of foreigners, listening to the Whitney Houston medley when "I Will Always Love You" pops up. I was alone, so I threw up my arms and pretended I was on stage and lip synced until the "yoouuuuuu," when a bit of the song kind of slipped out (completely without my consent). At this point, I hear a very timid "Sumimasen," or "Excuse me." It was obvious by his slightly embarrassed look that he had not just walked in the door. I didn't know what to do, so I just rushed to the door and left Whitney belting out a series of pop hits while this frightened businessman handed me a card about graphic design. (Random people sometimes stop by the classroom to hand out cards for businesses which I can't fathom why an English school would need their services.) He was speaking in super polite rapid-fire Japanese and I was so mortified that I didn't even try to process what he was saying. I just nodded my head and left him finish his monologue before telling him, "I don't understand anything, but a Japanese person will be here next week." If I had been less flustered, I could have gotten across my meaning a bit more eloquently, but I really just wanted him to leave as soon as possible. So did he, apparently, because after I said, "Arigato" and took his card, he bolted out the door, and I keeled over laughing at myself.

If you need a refresher on "I Will Always Love You" or The Bodyguard, this official music video pretty much does it justice. I think the unsuspecting Japanese dude today walked in at about 3:20 in this video and saw a good 20 seconds of reenactment.

"I Will Always Love You"

Bearded People Music Festival

2009-08-31T16:12:00.005+09:00

I love live music. Going to concerts ranks very high on my Top Five Things in the Universe list. Since I've been in Japan, I've only attended two concerts, both of which were Japanese jazz concerts. While they were very interesting, they couldn't quite fill that hole where live rock once existed in my life.

On Saturday, I finally remedied the lack of concerts in my life in Japan. One my friends had an extra ticket to a long ago sold out music festival that just happened to be in Nagaoka. Rarely do cool things happen in Nagaoka, so I was very surprised that I hadn't even heard of this festival until a few days before it was to take place. Luckily, I had a very rare Saturday off that coincided with the concert. The name of the festival was Higetachi no Ongaku Way 2009. I knew that ongaku means music and tachi is added to a word regarding people to make it plural, but hige was not in my vocabulary. Takeo informed me that hige means beard. We thought it over and decided that the festival's name translates roughly to "Beard People's Music Festival." I saw almost no bearded people there, but I still like the name.

My friend, Ellen, and her boyfriend, Takeo, and his friend, Nishi, met me at Nagaoka station and we began our journey to Echigo Hillside Park (the same park where Dustin and I had a BBQ with some friends a few Sundays ago). I had no idea how big this concert was. I knew it was a festival with many different types of music, but that's about all of the information I had required to agree to attend. When we got to the line-up for the shuttle buses, I was shocked. The huge line of people waiting to be taken to the park went around two and half city blocks. Wowzers. But of course, the Japanese are efficient and we went through that huge line quickly and were on a bus headed for the festival within ten minutes.

Once we got to the festival, we were given a wristband. Until we made our way to the hill on which we finally sat, we were instructed repeatedly to put our hands up (to show our wristband). There were signs, people with megaphones, and staff members yelling at the top of their lungs for us to display our wristbands. I felt like a part of some vague cause, all of our hands raised in solidarity... ultimately, I suppose that cause would be music.

Before the concert, I had never heard of any of the bands playing. The Japanese people I was with, however, did in fact know most of the bands/artists. I asked Takeo what type of music each band played. Funky Monkey Baby, the first band, was described as a funk band. Then there was a 1980's idol, a rock group, a ska band, a soft rock duo, a heavy metal band, a reggae band, and a hip-hop artist/rapper. Well, aside from the ska band (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, the most famous of the artists to people outside of Japan) and the rapper (KREVA), all of the bands sounded exactly the same.

I'm not a fan of J-Pop. I've heard plenty of it. It's amusing when paired with teenaged girls performing a memorized dance routine, but it's just not for me. One of my Japanese friends gave me a few CDs of Japanese music. I listened to them a few times. I liked Tsuji Ayano alright. She's fun and a bit rocky. She has a really sweet voice that reminds you of a bright sunny day. It's peaceful and dreamy, and that ukulele can't help but make you happy. Chara, on the other hand wasn't horrible, but just not for me. She's an idol from the 90's. It's not quite J-pop, but too close for my tastes. I found one Japanese artist on my own that I like, and I occasionally listen to him (Shugo Tokumaru). He's got an indie rock sound mixed with Japanese craziness. In summary, despite trying very hard to find Japanese music I could fall in love with, I did not succeed. I had basically given up on finding really good Japanese music, but I hoped that this festival, full of new Japanese artist, would change my mind.

When the festival began, Funky Monkey Baby was on stage. They were supposed to be funk, but they sounded more like pop. The next artist, the idol, not surprisingly sounded like pop. The rock group sounded like pop. I wasn't very optimistic about discovering any Japanese music I liked.

The next group was Tokyo Ska Paradise. Many people, Japanese, American, and British alike, told me they were awesome. They were. I'm not a fan of ska, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. When they came on in light pink suits carrying a leopard print keyboard, I decided I liked them already. Ellen is a huge ska fan. Takeo and Nishi really like Tokyo Ska Para. Everyone wanted to abandon our comfy tarp up at the top of the hill to get as close as we could to the stage in the standing area. Ellen was going to teach Takeo and I how to skank. Takeo was a fast student, but I have little to no rhythm, so I didn't quite catch on. It was a fun show regardless of my lack of dancing skill. I still don't love ska, but I enjoyed the concert very much. I probably won't listen to this band in my free time, but I can definitely appreciate that they are a very amazing band.

After Tokyo Ska Para, there was a sleepy soft rock duo. We took this opportunity to pick up food. After a $4 ear of corn, I was anxious to see the "heavy medal" band. I couldn't imagine what Japanese heavy medal would sound like. The band, Unicorn, was Takeo's favorite of the day. Unfortunately, he'd gotten worn out from Tokyo Ska Para and slept through most of Unicorn. He wasn't woken up by the heavy medal sound, because there was no heavy medal sound. Unicorn's first song was acoustic! They sounded just like the rest of the bands that day. Towards the end of their set, Unicorn played what was apparently their most famous song. Takeo suddenly sat up and jumped right into the lyrics of the song and we headed quickly down to the standing area near the stage.

After Unicorn, a Japanese reggae band played. I have heard lots of good things about Japanese reggae, but I'd never actually listened to any. This band was called Shonan no Kaze, which means Wind from Shonan (a city in Japan). They were awesome! Definitely my favorite band of the day. Admittedly, they didn't sound too reggae, but there was a bit of a reggae undertone. They were fun. There was a great danceable beat. And the energy of the crowd just soared. The lead singer took about 5 minutes to talk to the crowd. I heard "freedom" in English and then "music" and "friends" in Japanese. I didn't understand anything else of his monologue, so I asked Nishi to translate. Nishi is a really nice guy, but he knows about as much English as I do Japanese, so we didn't exactly have a lot of deep conversations. He told me that the singer wanted everyone to listen to music in freedom of nature and be friends. Since we were in the middle of a ring of small mountains, I think that pretty much sums up the entire concert. I liked Shonan no Kaze even more after that speech.

At one point during Shonan no Kaze's set, everyone got out their towels and started swinging them at certain moments during the song. I didn't know how they knew when to swing their towels. It seemed to be innate. Japanese people are always carrying a towel to wipe away the inevitable sweat in the summer, so everyone was ready with their towel. I didn't have one, but I really wanted to be a part of this mass towel swinging. Luckily, Nishi had an extra towel and let me use it. I watched my peers and lifted my towel when they did. I tried to swing it like everyone else, but it kept getting twisted around my hand. Eventually, I figured it out and swung my towel along with the other 20,000 people in the audience. It was amazing. I had never seen anything like this before. Dustin later told me that people do this in the U.S. at sports games all the time. Hmmm... how would I know? I haven't been to a sports game in ages.

I took a short video of the towel swinging. That's Nishi showing off his sweet dance skills. You can hear Shonan no Kaze in the background.

The last act was KREVA, a Japanese rapper. I was interested to see how that would sound. The DJs with him were pretty awesome, but after 2 minutes of KREVA's rapping, I'd had enough. My interest was peaked again when I heard Jackson 5's music, but unfortunately, it was just a small sample with no Michael and only KREVA rapping over it. When we'd had enough, we finally folded up our tarp and made our way back to Nagaoka proper.

I had a lot of fun, got too much sun, and took loads of pictures. I added the pictures to the end of my "last days of summer" album, which you can click on at the right. There are also loads of pictures of the first potluck Dustin and I have hosted in our brand new apartment. The potluck was a blast, but the pictures speak for themselves.

I finally took a video tour of the apartment! I set aside an entire morning to film it, upload it, and write a bit about the parts I missed when I filmed it. But apparently, the internet only likes videos that are ten minutes or less in length. I filmed 12 glorious minutes of our apartment, so both YouTube and Blogger rejected it. Boo. Dustin thinks his filming skills surpass mine anyways, so he'll take another one soon, but soon in Dustin-time could be ages. I'll try to persuade him to do it in the next week or so, but you know how these things are. Don't blame me though, I tried... and failed.

The summer passed me by quickly. It didn't feel like the summer I'm used to. Now that I've stepped my big toe into the shallow end of the real world, I don't get the luxury of summer vacation. We worked a lot and had a wee bit of time off. It's the last day of August, so there's really no more summer. Our first year in Japan has almost come to an end.

A Japanese Massage

2009-08-24T12:19:00.002+09:00

Last week, I finally got that massage Dustin had given me for my birthday. It had been a long month and my back was aching, so I was elated at the thought of twenty minutes of back pain relief.

I went to the massage parlor, and showed my gift certificate. It was very different than any spa in the U.S. It was a big, open room with about ten tables, and three chairs. There was an older man getting what appeared to be a pedicure in one of the chairs, and a business man getting a quick rubdown on his lunch break on one of the tables. Since everyone was enjoying their relaxing in one room, I hoped they wouldn't ask me to disrobe. They did not. Instead, I kept on every piece of clothing and was covered in a giant towel, neck to foot.

Thinking of my experiences with massages in America, I expected my masseuse to pull back the towel covering whichever body part she was massaging at that time. But, no, during this massage, the towel remained over my entire body for the duration of the massage. Not once during the entire time did her skin come into contact with mine.

When she first started rubbing my back, it was a bit intense for my liking, but I got used to it quickly and began my relaxing. But suddenly, she was adjusting my spine, and trying to crack my back. I've never been to a chiropractor before, but I imagine I was getting an abbreviated version of a visit to one. She alternated between straightening my bones and pressing on my muscles for the rest of the massage.

Eventually, I let myself forget about all of the oddities and I just relaxed. It was an enjoyable massage. And it lasted about 35 minutes instead of the 20 I was entitled to. I can't say that I've noticed any grand improvements, but it was a nice afternoon activity and my back felt really awesome for that one day. Thanks, Dustin!

Ladies who Lunch

2009-08-20T11:16:00.003+09:00

Summer has finally hit Nagaoka. It's been hottish in the past few months, but you'd barely have noticed, since it rained nearly every day, bringing sporadic chills. The rain has stopped (for now) and it's sweltering. The water still lingers in the air, so you feel sticky all day long. I'm very thankful for the heat, though. I thought Nagaoka simply didn't have a summer for a while there. I'm able to have my favorite temperature at last.

We enjoyed our break. We got everything on our checklist done except for going to the beach. I couldn't convince Dustin to get out of bed before 1:30 on that day, so it wasn't much of a day after all. We had loads of fun playing video games and medals, going out to eat a bit too much, lounging around the house watching TV, and playing in the park. Looking back, it appears like it was a lazy break, but at the time, it seemed like almost every day was packed.

Tuesday, I went back to work, but I was completely unprepared for it. I had written my lesson plans for those classes the week before break, but I hadn't looked at them in 2 weeks. I hadn't created all of the materials I needed for my classes, either. I ended up only having one hour to prepare for my 3 lessons (a busy day in Peppy standards), but they turned out surprisingly well.

The reason for my lack of preparation is that I had agreed to have lunch with one of my student's mothers that day. She picked me up at the train station, and took me to her apartment. I told her I'd like to be at the classroom by 3:00. She said that wasn't enough time, so she'd take me at 4:00. I couldn't exactly refuse, since she was being so hospitable. I was constantly checking the clock during lunch, because I was so paranoid about being late. (Being late is practically the end of the world in a Japanese company.)

While she cooked some spaghetti, the kids lounged on the floor reading comics and occasionally wrestling. Banba-san (or Mrs. Banba) and I talked about this that and the other. All morning, I had been slightly anxious about my lunch date, since I knew we would be speaking in Japanese the whole afternoon. It turns out, I didn't have much to worry about. We communicated with each other pretty well. My sentence structure and grammar were laughable (I know, because the kids did sometimes laugh at my attempt to speak Japanese.), but I was always able to get my point across. At times, we passed the dictionary back and forth between us. This probably wouldn't have been necessary if Banba-san hadn't used such high level Japanese as the words for "to be accustomed to," "preparation," and "best used by."

Banba-san has always been one of the nicest parents I've encountered in Japan. She always has a wide smile on her face when she greets me at the classroom door. She often brings me some homemade baked goods. Before Summer School, she'd attempted small talk, but it was limited to the 30 seconds I usually have between two classes. After one of her sons' Summer School class a few weeks ago, however, she started chatting me up for a longer period of time. She then asked for my phone number. The next day, she called and we made plans for lunch he next time I was in town! I was grateful for the invitation, but I didn't really know why she wanted to cook lunch for me. None of the other parents even expressed interest in talking to me, much less spending an entire afternoon with me.

During lunch, I discovered Banba-san's motive. She said, "I have only sons. I love my sons, but I want a daughter. Sensei, you are so cute. You are like a daughter." Hmmmm... I didn't realize that I was agreeing to be a surrogate daughter. Her intent was even clearer when she started giving me "presents" of food from her pantry. I left with about 3 kilos of rice, a package of spaghetti, and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Lunch was tasty, the conversation was fun and very good practice, and playing Wii Fit with the kids was a blast. (I want one!) All in all, it was a very nice afternoon spent with a cute little Japanese family. She's invited me to come back, but unfortunately, my company is making cutbacks, so I won't be teaching in Niigata any more. It's pretty expensive to get up there from Nagaoka, and there's another Peppy teacher who lives in Niigata, so I'll be switching schools with him soon. Boo-hoo. Hopefully, I'll find a cute little Japanese family who wants to cook me dinner here in Nagaoka!

p.s. There are new pictures of us at the park!

An Exciting July Continues

2009-07-30T18:51:00.005+09:00

This post is so very late, because Dustin and I have been extremely busy with moving and summer school and general life happenings. Gomen nasai! (I'm really sorry!)

On to the really important things: Harry Potter. It had the same release date as the states, which means it technically came out in Japan before it showed in the U.S. Nah nah nah nah boo boo! And since I saw at 8:45 a.m., that means it was well before the midnight showing occurred stateside. "Why 8:45 in the morning?" you ask. Well, it was the first possible showing in Nagaoka, and it was the only time I could manage to see it before making it to work on a Wednesday night. I convinced two of my gaijin friends who are fellow Harry Potter fanatics to join me for this early-morning showing.

It was a drizzly morning and the theatre is across the bridge, so we had to catch the 7:55 bus. It was supposed to be a 10 minute bus ride, but none of us had ever ridden the bus during the early morning rush hour. As the time ticked on and the bus got more crowded, we worried that everyone would rush the theatre and we'd have the crappy seats that the theatre's less than technologically-advanced website had assigned us. When we arrived at the theatre 30 minutes after our journey had begun, a few high-school-aged girls got off the bus with us, but most of the passengers were on their way to work. Whew!

There weren't too many people in Nagaoka crazy enough to go to the 8:45 a.m. showing on opening day, so we had our choice of seats. Luckily, Cat knew about the Tempur Pedic seats that are supposedly so comfortable that discomfort is impossible while sitting in one, even for hours. I can neither support nor refute this claim, because I didn't notice anything at all about the chair while I was watching Harry Potter.

Armed with a breakfast of popcorn and soda (very healthy, I know), I readied myself for 153 minutes of joy. The first preview to flash across the screen was for Night at the Museum 2. I knew something was weird about it, but I was so focused on the looming presence of Harry, that it didn't dawn on me that the movie was dubbed in Japanese. The voice coming out of Ben Stiller's character was definitely not his own... Vivian turned to Cat and I and said, "Oh, no! Is Harry Potter going to be dubbed?" AHHH! The thought hadn't even crossed our minds. The next preview came on, Where the Wild Things Are (which looks amazing by the way), and it was in English. We spent the next few minutes with fingers crossed hoping and praying that Harry Potter wouldn't be dubbed. The big WB logo flashed across the screen, then the music started, and the whispering started and with the whispering... subtitles! Thank goodness! We let out a collective sigh, releasing the breath we'd been holding.

No one talked for the next two and a half hours, except for the moment when Cat turned to me with a look of utter confusion on her face and asked, "Why are they wearing shoes inside the house?!" Laughing, I replied, "They're not in Japan." She's been here far too long.

*SPOILER ALERT*

As for the actual movie, it was good while I was watching it, but immediately after it was finished, I was a bit disappointed in it. There were so many things in the book that they blatantly left out of the movie. I know it's difficult to condense such a large book into a movie, but why add stupid things that aren't in the book (What's with the opening scene, really?) and get rid of interesting side plots (Where were Fleur and Bill?). My biggest beef was the scene in the Astronomy Tower. In the book, Dumbledore forces Harry to don the invisibility cloak and then stuns him, so he can't move and no one knows that he's there, rendering him completely and utterly helpless. He really wants to stop Draco and Snape, but he literally cannot because of the spells he's under. In the movie, Dumbledore just asks him to hide under the floor, where he can look up and see what's going on and has more than one chance to send a spell towards Draco and/or Snape. It makes Harry seem slightly at fault for not helping Dumbledore. Bad move, Steve Kloves or David Yates, whoever made that decision. Overall, so-so. I still can't wait for the two-part conclusion to the movies!

ANYWAYS, as I said, the new pad is rocking! It's much bigger, brighter, more traditional, less moldy, more convenient, cheaper, and all around better. There are basically 5 rooms: bathroom/shower/laundry room, the kitchen, the living room, the office, and the bedroom. It's nice to have multiple rooms and doors. Dustin and I have survived the ultimate relationship test by living in such close quarters for 9 months, but we'll be a much happier couple in our new place. Once we get it perfected (There is one piece of crucial furniture still missing, and a few decorating kinks to work out at the moment.), we'll make a video tour of the place and post it.

We really lucked out and happened upon a sale on Marine Day. Marine Day is a day to be thankful for the ocean. Typically, you spend the day at the beach with your family, but Dustin and I spent the whole day shopping instead. Peppy had provided us with most of our appliances and furniture (which we had to give back when we moved out), so we had quite a bit to find. We found a little at the local recycle shop, but there were slim pickings, so we got a lot of our stuff at the Japanese version of IKEA. That means we spent the rest of the night, screwing together a shelf, a cabinet, and a desk. We got all of our appliances for great deals. Our TV was 50% off and the oven and washer were each cheaper than the used ones we'd seen at the recycle shop (which aren't guaranteed to work). Whoo-hoo!

We're super happy in our new place. We haven't gotten much of a chance to enjoy it yet, because it's Peppy's busiest time of the year: Summer School. Each school has a 5-day Summer School, with the Japanese Teacher teaching 3 days, and the Native Teacher teaching 2 days. So, that means we get to teach 6 days and then have 2 office days, during which we could be sent anywhere in Japan to cover for a Native Teacher who gets sick. We'll be saying many many prayers on those days that every Peppy teacher is extra healthy, because our office days happen to coincide with Nagaoka's festival, which boasts the largest fireworks in Japan. Hundreds of thousands of people come from all over Japan to watch them. I'm not big on fireworks, but I've heard these are not to be missed.

We're half-way through with Summer School now. After a few days back with our regular work schedules, we get a 5-day weekend (if no one in our area is late up until then) for Obon, the Japanese Buddhist custom of honoring one's departed family members. Since moving was such a giant expense, we're going to go the "staycation" route and explore Nagaoka a bit further, maybe go to the beach, see Neoteny Japan (contemporary Japanese art exhibit), and make a trip to Niigata for Round 1 and Thai and/or Indian food. The last part of our break will be spent cleaning out our old apartments. We took all of our belongings out on moving day and haven't looked back since. We finally say our last goodbyes to our first home in Japan on August 17. The only thing I'll miss about it is its proximity to Saizeriya (my favorite "fast-food" Italian restaurant).

Life in Nagaoka is very rainy and very busy, but very good at the moment.

Cute Bento

2009-07-18T20:03:00.005+09:00

This is technically only Japanese-inspired, since it was made by what appears to be an American woman, but it's typical Japanese stay-at-home-mom style lunch box or bento. There's a whole slew of cookbooks in all of the book stores that show you how to make your kid's lunch look way cuter and therefore cooler (because in Japan, cute definitely equals cool) than any other kid's. The most common I've seen are popular cartoon characters such as Anpanman (a bread superhero) or Hello Kitty. This one I stumbled across is definitely the prettiest and most intricate. I hope I have the energy to be such a cool mom when I have kids of my own.

Here's the photo album where I got this: Wacky Food Art Time.

It's All Happening

2009-07-16T10:04:00.003+09:00

The process of trying to find a landlord that would tolerate two devious foreigners such as Dustin and myself was a long and stressful one. About two months ago, we found our dream apartment, thought we had secured it as a residence, and were made to jump through hoops, only to miss the last hoop: a guarantor. Originally, we were to move in on July 6, the day after one of our huge work meetings where every Peppy employee in our prefecture gets together in one room. Unfortunately, we hadn't found anyone to sponsor us by the time that meeting rolled around, so I had resigned myself to staying in our little box on the boring side of town for however long we stayed in Nagaoka. At that point, I was leaning towards NOT staying here any longer than absolutely necessary.

After our loooooong meeting (I'm not used to working 6 hours in one day!), some of us went out for dinner and drinks at a local restaurant. Somehow, I ended up paying $50 for a salad and two drinks and Dustin ended up paying the same for a tiny plate of pasta and 3 drinks. Being poor, I was quite put out by having to overpay so much for a highly mediocre meal. I was so annoyed in fact, that I declared that Dustin and I would be going home immediately instead of joining the others at the bar they planned to head to as we now had no money left in our wallets. Our boss was sympathetic and suggested heading back to his place for a few drinks (free of charge) instead of going on to another establishment. Though I was still miffed about the dinner situation, I knew that Dustin wasn't ready to call it a night, so I headed back to Schyler's place with a few coworkers.

At some point in the night, one of my Japanese coworkers, Yuko, asked when we were moving into our new apartment. A few days after we'd first found the apartment and decided on a move-in date with the realtor, we'd gone to Round 1 with a huge group of people who were all subjected to a long description of how wonderful our new apartment was going to be and how we'd have them all over for a potluck and yada yada yada. Since those two months had passed, I hadn't really seen Yuko for any long period of time, so she hadn't yet had the pleasure of hearing my "Japan's discriminatory rental practices" speech.

Once I finished my rant, she said casually, "So all you need is a hoshonin (guarantor)?"

Me, "Yeah... but I've asked everyone that I thought might possibly do it." Yuko, "Well, could I be your hoshonin?" Dustin and I looked at each other to confirm that the other had also heard Yuko's offer correctly. I said, "You would do that?" She proceeded to explain that when she was in L.A., she had similar experiences trying to find an apartment, so she knows how tough it is being a foreigner and how the simplest task back home feels impossible abroad.

After about a million thanks and Dustin removing the ring from my finger and offering to give it to Yuko instead (I'm pretty sure he was joking.), we made an appointment to go to the realtors that Friday and get our apartment. I spent the next week gathering as much cash as I could and worrying here and there that our apartment would have been snatched up in the month we'd failed to find a hoshonin or that Yuko would be too young to be our hoshonin or that they'd make us find a second hoshonin or... anything.

When we walked into the realtor with Yuko trailing behind us, our realtor looked surprised to see us again. I said, "Hoshonin arimasu." or "We have a guarantor." Her surprise turned into a smile and she said something to the effect of "That's great. It's been hard work, huh? It's difficult for foreigners." She's a kind woman who has really tried her very best to help us through this despite never really talking to us directly. Since we don't understand most terms concerned with renting an apartment, whoever we've taken with us (our American friend who's lived in Japan for 4 years and knows quite a bit of Japanese, one of our Japanese bosses, and Yuko) has been our translator. She was so pleased that we found someone and she still had our file sitting on her desk, with our dream apartment's info page tucked neatly inside of it. We started to fill out the papers for Yuko to be our hoshonin. She asked when our contract was up and called the landlord who graciously decided that our lease would mirror our contract, so that we wouldn't be left with any extra months of rent to pay after our time in Nagaoka is finished. When the forms were filled out, we were told that Yuko had to be approved by the insurance company and we could come back the next Tuesday to sign the lease, pay, and get the key. We set our move-in date for July 19.

I was a bit more hopeful about getting the apartment, but I had a lingering fear that something would go wrong. Tuesday came and I took the money with me to meet Dustin and Yuko at the realtor at 12:00 sharp. I pulled my bike up to a very agitated Dustin, who barked, "You're late." I replied, "How can that be? I left extra early." To this, he replied, "You're only 3 minutes before noon. In Japan, that means you're late." "Ok, ok. Sorry... Where's Yuko?" I tried to keep my speech calm, but my inner dialogue was closer to "Oh, great. So, this is what it is. She's not going to come. Man, I really want this apartment. Will she come? Where could she be? Oh, no. I hope she's not hurt. WHERE IS SHE?" At some point after college ended, I went from eternal optimist to perpetual worrier. I guess that's what the real world does to you.

Luckily, she showed up soon after my mini-freak out. We spent the next hour and a half signing the lease. It wouldn't have taken as long if Dustin hadn't insisted that Yuko translate every word on the 20 page document. After adding up the deposit, realtor's fee, first month and a half of rent, and various other fees, we were nearly $3,000 poorer. We'll get a tiny portion of that back once we move out and we don't have to pay rent again until the end of August, but paying 5 months rent up front just to rent a place for a year seems pretty steep to me. We'll be saving loads of money once we finally do move in though.

It didn't feel completely real until I had the key in my hand. I imagine it will feel even more real when the movers come at 9:30 a.m. on SUNDAY! Ah! It's so soon. I thought we had accumulated a lot of junk, but we got almost all of it packed up in a few hours time this week, so I guess we don't have THAT much. We're so excited! I'll post a video of the new place once we get all settled. Sunday and Monday are devoted entirely to making our new apartment a home I will actually be proud to call mine (for a year anyways).

p.s. Please send any further mail to the new address at the right! Thanks much.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-07-02T19:41:00.002+09:00

Back in February, I came across an advertisement for Cirque Du Soleil: ZED in Tokyo. I've been bugging Dustin about how much I wanted to see it and how it would make a perfect birthday present ever since. Last weekend, we actually traveled to Tokyo and made my dream come true! It was hard to believe we'd been in Japan for 9 months, and hadn't yet made it to Tokyo.

After our very expensive 2 days, I now understand why we waited so long to visit. It was costly and quite busy, but extremely fun and whimsical. When planning my birthday weekend, I chose things I really wanted to see and do to fill our time. It wasn't until our weekend was coming to a close that I realized everything I picked to celebrate my 24th birthday was something I would have chosen at the age of 10 as well.

First on the agenda (after a short stop in Akihabara, so Dustin could pick up some computer goodies) was Cirque Du Soleil, the original excuse for the entire trip. I have only one bad thing to say about Cirque Du Soleil, and that is the fact that we put the performance at the very beginning of our trip rather than the end. It was the most magnificent thing I've seen all year, so everything else that weekend seemed a bit less spectacular than it might have had I never seen Cirque Du Soleil in person. I've seen performances on television, but I knew it would be infinitely more amazing in person, and I was not at all disappointed. From the very first act, I was convinced I had fallen into the storybook along with the funny French clowns. The next hour seemed like a mystical dream. The fantasy was only broken by the intermission. I won't even try to explain the death-defying and seemingly impossible feats I witnessed, because I could never do them justice with words. The show started with an incredible piece involving flying sprites glowing with bright colors and a giant bird-like goddess. Countless risky acts fell between this breathtaking opening and the best finale I've witnessed during any theatre piece. Before the show closed, every performer came onstage, and they all simultaneously acted out their talents. I was awed. I felt like I was in the middle of the ring even though I was closer to the ceiling than the stage and there was no ring. I nearly lost myself completely in the fantasy until I heard Dustin's commentary about it being too much for him to handle. If I wasn't so clumsy, I would have been convinced to join the circus immediately.

For dinner, we headed to Ginza for a "fantasy dining experience" at Alice Restaurant. We were greeted at the door with a hostess dressed as Alice. She led us to our secluded little table where another Alice handed us our cocktail menus, with all the girly Wonderland concoctions hidden behind playing cards. After we chose our drinks, we were served little cups of dried fruit adorned with "Eat Me" notes. I had a very fancy pizza sans cheese (There weren't too many vegetarian options.) and Dustin had some fancy pasta. Dustin mentioned that it was my birthday, so the waitress asked what my name was. She was having trouble pronouncing it, so I offered to write it down for her. Thinking she needed to know to insert it into the birthday song, I wrote it out in katakana, so she would know how to say it. When they brought out the elaborate Cheshire Cat cake/pastry/ whip cream mountain, "Happy Birthday デーナ" was written in whip cream. Ha Ha. I also got a cute little Alice in Wonderland birthday card that says, "Happy Memorial Day" on the front and has a picture of me in an Alice headband and Dustin in the white rabbit ears holding my cake in the inside. The whole experience was very quaint. Even in Tokyo, Sundays are not the most happening day. Alice Restaurant was closed by 10:30, and despite looking around for another bar to find a real vodka martini (something I haven't come across in 9 months), we ended up back at the hostel earlish.

I was keen to go to sleep a bit early, knowing that the next day we would need as much energy as we could muster, because we would be spending the entire day at Disney Sea. Disney Sea is in the Tokyo Disney Resort. It's a Disney theme park unique to Tokyo. Its most appealing element was Mermaid Lagoon, the area that housed all things Little Mermaid. Since it was the first movie I ever saw in the movie theatre, it will always hold a special place in my heart. It's probably the movie I have seen the most times in my life (I believe I remember killing a VHS of the movie from overviewing.) and it's still not lost its magic. Mermaid Lagoon was indeed magical, but all of the rides were for young children. We did hop on the Jumping Jellyfish, but they were pretty boring. The short show "Under the Sea" was pretty interesting. Ariel was suspended much like the performers we'd seen the previous evening in Cirque Du Soleil, but they made no effort to hide the wires from which Ariel hung. The puppeteering was very interesting. They had people dressed head to toe in velour of colors corresponding to their puppet. Most of the puppets came down from the ceiling. Very cool. The giant animatronic, Japanese-speaking Ursula whose tentacles filled the theatre was much more terrifying than I think they intended, but the effect was impressive. We rode the Caravan Carousel in Arabian Coast (Aladdin's domain), and though Dustin very much wanted to ride a Genie, he was outrun by all of the children in line. We also visited Sinbad's Storybook Adventure, which was pretty much It's a Small World, but telling the story of Sinbad (which I realized while on the ride that I did not know). We also did some boy-themed things such as the Indiana Jones ride, a few generic roller coasters dressed up in Disney, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Tower of Terror. We tried to ride the gondolas in "Venice" twice, but each time they were closed for a water show of some sort.

We decided to end our lovely weekend in Tokyo with dinner at Disney Sea. I checked the map for all of our dining options and found that one out of the thirty-four restaurants offered a vegetarian option, so that's where we headed. Ristorante di Canaletto, in Mediterranean Harbor, happened to be the fanciest and most expensive restaurant in the park. They also failed to mention on the map that by vegetarian fare they meant a five-course vegetarian meal. Once we were seated and had ordered our wine and beer (Yes, you can drink alcohol in Disney Sea!), we figured we were committed and went all out for my second of three birthday meals. I ordered the only thing I could and Dustin ordered an overpriced salad and some truffle ravioli. The food was gourmet, the atmosphere was classy, the staff was overly polite. Eating a piece of cabbage stuffed with various vegetables and drizzled in an unidentified sauce while sipping my wine and listening to some lovely classical music, I felt very mature and sophisticated for a few minutes. And then I looked around the restaurant and saw an exhausted girl sleeping on her table, a couple of Japanese teenagers with Minnie Mouse ears adorning their heads, and a girl whose very understanding boyfriend was helping her arrange her collection of newly purchased teddy bears in a high chair at their table. It was a wonderful meal nonetheless, and a very fitting conclusion to my grown-up fantasy birthday weekend.

As for my real birthday, today, it's been great as well. One of our coworkers quit a few weeks ago, so I had to travel 2 hours away to cover his school yesterday. Since it was so far away, I had to spend the night in a hotel last night, on the company of course. That meant that on my birthday morning, I woke up on a lovely and very comfortable bed, something I miss very much. By some luck of scheduling, I have my birthday, a random Thursday, off of work. So, Dustin and I went to my favorite restaurant for my third birthday meal, a chain of cheap, fast Japanese-style Italian food, Saizeriya. Dustin asked if I wanted to use the menu to indicate to the waitress what I wanted to order, since pointing to a picture and saying, "This one." is my method of ordering nearly anywhere we go. I go to Saizeriya so often, however, that I know all of the Japanese needed to order my preferred meal of focaccia and アラビアタ pasta without bacon. I refused the menu and proceeded to order in flawless Japanese. (My order there is one of the many phrases I've got down.) After the waitress left, Dustin suggested that I look at the menu again, and as I picked it up, an envelope slid out from between the pages. It was a gift certificate for a massage! Whoo-hoo. Hints work after all... Our lunch was less than fourth the cost of either of the previous birthday meals in Tokyo.

Dustin had to work today, so I got a rare seven hours of alone time! It was a lovely day full of listening to music as loud as I like, putting together a jigsaw puzzle of an adorable puppy, reading a bit, and dancing like a fool all by myself. The night will end with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. My fellow Harry Potter fans and I are trying to re-watch the first five Harry Potter movies before the sixth one comes out in a mere two weeks!!!!!!!!!!! It's been a lovely birthday weekend. Thanks to all who have (and will) extended birthday wishes. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a giant dance party with all of you present (and maybe a burrito from Qdoba)! December can't come fast enough...

Where is my mind?

2009-06-19T23:46:00.002+09:00

So, I've been walking around in a haze for the past few weeks. I've been swamped at work trying to learn and then teach several new curriculums that all happen to occur within the same short time span. I've been exhausted and stressed and that's only made life harder. Perhaps bad things only happened because I was already in a bad state of mind. But happen they did... and like my sudden workload increase, they occurred all at once.

Dustin and I struck gold before we'd even walked into the realtor when we found an advertisement for the dream apartment outside the realtor's office. We carried it in, saw it minutes later, and fell in love on the spot. My main criteria, a huge kitchen, was more than met. This apartment is 5 minutes from the train station, right off the only main street in Nagaoka, closer to our friends, our Nagaoka schools, our office... in a word: perfect. The rent is almost half the amount we pay now and it's at least double the size of our two apartments combined. We were told to get a Japanese person as a reference and to be prepared to pay about 4 months rent up front as realtor fees, "gift money" and deposit. We came in that week with one of our Japanese bosses (our reference) and plenty of money. All of the required paperwork was signed. We were prepared to move in July 6th! Yippee! And then... suddenly everyone changes their mind. They insist we need a guarantor, someone to take responsibility for us "in case." I asked all of the Japanese people I'm friends with, and not unexpectedly, they declined. Having only known even my closest Japanese friends for 7 months, I wasn't surprised that they didn't want to have the possibility of me skipping the country and them having to pay for half a year's rent looming in the background of our still relatively new friendship. Our bosses and the people who work for the head office all said it was "impossible" for our company to help us out, since Peppy already provides (and by provides, I mean forces us to live in and pay rent for) [crappy] apartments. When we couldn't convince anyone to sponsor us, the realtor suggested using an insurance company. We then filled out these forms, and only after we submitted our application did they tell us that we would need a guarantor. There's still a possibility that we will get this apartment. They are still "thinking about it." They've asked to copy our bank books, pay statements, passports, and foreign residence cards. We're crossing our fingers.

All of my foreign friends whose fiancées happen to be Japanese have had no problems whatsoever finding amazing apartments and getting into them swiftly. On the surface, Japan is a friendly and America-loving nation, but when it comes to certain formalities essential to accommodating to a country, they can be quite racist.

Of course, being in bad spirits about the best apartment in the whole wide world slipping through my fingers, something would happen to make it all worse. We had a meeting at one of my schools in Nagaoka, so I woke up, got ready to go out the door, stuck my keys in my bike, and pedaled across the bridge to my school. When I got to the meeting, my boss and several of my coworkers were already inside preparing for our long day of demo-ing upcoming Summer School lessons for each other. I rolled my bike immediately inside the classroom and joined them. After the meeting, we were all packing up to go and someone asked if anyone had the spare keys. Since it was my school, I'd brought my keys along with me and they should have been dangling off my bike where they had remained all day keeping my bike in the ready position. I reached for my keys and saw, to my utter horror and disbelieve, that my key chain had broken (presumably somewhere on my 30 minute bike ride) and the classroom keys were missing. I spent the next several days retracing the path I'd taken that day, tearing apart my bags, laundry basket, and apartment. I even went back to the koban to report them missing.

The nice policeman who helped me this time was younger than the cute little old man that was so much "help" with my stolen bicycle, but he had far less patience. My Japanese has improved immensely since my last visit, but my ability to form sentences that are both polite and make sense is a bit lacking. I practiced what I need to say and got out, "I lost the keys to a children's English school on Ote Street maybe. It is 3 keys and a green keychain." He helped me fill out the necessary form, but we ran into trouble when he asked me to describe the keys. Ummmm... When I stared dumbly back at him, he asked how long they were. Unfortunately for him, he got the same blank stare. He then asked how many centimeters they were. At this point, I was worried and embarrassed at the same time. I know that I've measured things using centimeters back in elementary school and perhaps once in a science class in college, but when asked to give the measurement of something you've never even considered measuring in a unit you rarely use, the thought is terrifying. I felt so ashamed that I couldn't even tell him how long my keys were. His keys were laying on the table, so I pointed at the short one and said "2 keys are this." I then pointed to the long one and said, "1 key is this." This didn't really help. He asked me to draw them. Hmmmm... I'm not much of an artist, so I started to trace his key. He took the pen and paper away and finally said, "I understand." He related to me, in Japanese that I'm sure made much more sense than my own, what I had been trying to convey. He talked to the main police station and ensured me that no such keys had been turned in and that if they found them they'd call me and blah blah blah.

It's been 3 weeks and no luck. I confessed my irresponsibility to my boss. Apparently, the company is nervous that the high crime rate in Japan [extreme sarcasm there] will strike in the heart of Nagaoka and whoever finds the keys will somehow realize what those keys will unlock Of course then, they will unlock Peppy's doors and steal a cornucopia of construction paper or perhaps a fax machine. They have decided to change the locks, and guess who's paying for it? Luckily, they are only changing the locks on one of two doors. For some reason or another, it is going to cost between $300 and $600 to do this. Whoo-hoo! AND, I get to inconvenience one of my Japanese teachers/friend who I think already feels a bit weird around me since I asked her to be a guarantor, therefore putting her in what she saw as an awkward position when she had to come up with a nice way of saying, "No."

I've been trying to think positively and be more present in every waking moment. I thought I was doing a bit better, but today, my mind wandered away for a bit and I lost yet another set of keys! Since the incident with my broken key chain, I've been keeping my bike keys separate and only putting them in my bike when I'm riding. Now they are much smaller on their own, making them infinitely easier to lose. I have no idea what I was thinking about when I got off my bike and headed to the train station to leave for work, but it certainly wasn't my bike keys. At some point later in the day, I noticed that my bike keys were not in their normal place in my purse. I put it out of my mind while I was teaching, but said many silent (and a few voiced) prayers that my bike would still be there when I returned and that my smiling Troll key chain would be dangling from the bike lock.

When the train pulled into Nagaoka, I was off, walking as fast as I could to get to my bike. I approached the place where I just knew I had parked it and... it was there! But no sign of the Troll. Luckily, the Japanese bike companies and the bike lock companies have learned that people lose those tiny keys, so I had a spare of my bike key and the key to my extra lock back at home. I borrowed Dustin's bike, went home to get my spare keys, and headed out to meet some friends for dinner. After dinner, I grabbed my bike and started on my way home. I couldn't stop thinking about where those keys could be. I worried about whether or not the finder of my keys could somehow link them to my bike and steal it at a later date (yes, I know logic just as ridiculous as Peppy's). I thought that Dustin and I should switch our extra bike locks, so that they wouldn't be able to open my original lock with the key they would have found paired with the key to my bike. Mostly, I was disappointed that my Troll keychain was gone. I really liked that. Just as that last thought popped into my head, I looked down and saw a little Troll laying face down in a potted plant on the side of the road about a block away from where my bike had been parked. This key chain, too, was broken! Deeper in the plant, I found the key to my extra bike lock. I looked around to see if my bike key was anywhere, but no luck. I have no idea how they got there, but I have definitely learned two important lessons: 1) Be aware of what you are doing at all times, 2) Invest in a high quality key chain.

Turning Japanese, I think I'm Turning Japanese, I Really Think So.

2009-06-01T10:15:00.004+09:00

In April, I started Japanese classes. I certainly haven't learned every nuance of the language in a mere 2 months, but I have greatly improved my ability to bumble my way through the occasional very brief conversation in Japanese. And I know all of my katakana and hiragana characters. The more complicated kanji that sometimes represent whole words, on the other hand, still elude me.

Once I learned all of the katakana and hiragana characters, I started reading every little sign and billboard I saw. It reminded me vividly of when I first learned to read as a child and would call out what was on every billboard as we passed it driving around the city and on family vacations. The first time we went out to eat after I'd learned my Japanese alphabets, I sat at the table reading off every drink on the cocktail menu, slowly and tediously. Dustin was quite embarrassed. He told me it was like being in a restaurant in the U.S. and overhearing the person at the next table saying, "Mar... marti... martini! Scr... screw... screwdri... screwdriver!" I've since made sure to read my menus silently.

Besides learning a bit of Japanese, my Japanese class has given me a great sense of empathy for my own students. Now, when they stare back at me mouths agape with bewilderment, I can remember back to Tuesday morning when I had the same expression on my own face. When I first started teaching at Peppy, it was easy to find the students' utter lack of understanding at times very frustrating. Trying to learn Japanese, which is so very different than English, has shown me what a difficult task it must be for my young students to tackle English. It's become almost automatic to slow down my speech when I'm teaching.

I've finally reached the point where I speak in Janglish (Japanese/English) most of the time. The grammar and sentence structure are typically English, the vocabulary and the occasional verb are in Japanese. For example, instead of "We're riding our bikes to the train station." I would say, "We're riding our jitensha to the eki."I can make a few intelligible sentences, but I mostly speak in broken Japanese at the moment. By this time next year, hopefully, I will be tackling kanji and be able to have conversations that don't center around what time things occur and where things are located. Ganbatte, me!

In other evidence that I'm assimilating to the Japanese culture... My boss just got an iPhone and he was much better at exploring it and figuring out all of the wonders it holds than I was 7 months ago. I love my iPhone as much as one can love a phone, but I was always pretty disappointed that it didn't have the almost imperative fancy emoticons that all other Japanese cellphones come with. After having his phone for less than a week, my boss found the emoticons under the international keyboards (Check the "emotiji" option under the Japanese keyboards if you've an iPhone of your own and want to be more Japanese.) and shared his discovery with me. Yippee! All further SMSs and e-mails will certainly be sprinkled with the little pictographs, no matter how little sense they make. I will find a time to use the picture of the Russian flag or the blood-filled syringe. I just know I will...

Don't Shop 'Til You Drop, Please

2009-05-23T20:04:00.004+09:00

*Wow! 2 posts in one day. You guys are lucky. By the way, are there any "you guys" still out there? I'll probably keep writing even if you aren't, but I'd feel a bit less narcissistic if I knew you were. And I like to here what YOU think about what I'm thinking about.*

I ran across this brilliant video about the ridiculousness of America's consumer culture and I just had to share it (and of course my own opinions on the matter). As a self-proclaimed environmentalist, I have tried my hardest to eschew the materialism and consumerism of the U.S., but no one's perfect and this is one of the many aspects of my eco-guilt.

Back in high school, I never really loved to shop quite as much as most of my teenaged counterparts, but I took part in it anyways. Darn you, peer pressure! I rarely shop now unless I'm in need of a specific item or I'm on a mission for a gift. Today, in fact, I am wearing a concert t-shirt I picked up back on The Flaming Lip's 2002 tour (I have trouble saying good-bye to beloved pieces of my wardrobe.) and a sweater my mom picked up for me at a thrift store (Thanks, mom!). But my pants were only recently purchased back in February when I just needed some of those "skinny jeans" that tucked so nicely into the boots I wore nearly everyday to keep me warm.

Once I moved out of my parents house, I realized how effortless it was to amass a giant pile of junk in an extremely short period of time. I didn't particularly enjoy hauling all of my belongings from dorm room to parents' house to new apartment etc. etc. etc., yet I still managed to save up a truck full of stuff before leaving on my present journey. Dustin and I have only been in Japan for 7.5 months, but already our apartment is filled to the brim. Most of our belongings are things we brought from home or furniture, but some of it was unnecessary. Example: Did I really need that LEGO® calendar? I did get it from our premier recycle shop (read: thrift store with no charity involved), but it currently sits on my desk still displaying April's dates, because it's kind of a hassle to change and I rarely reference it anyway.

Japan is definitely a materialistic nation. Japan isolated themselves from the rest of the world for quite a long time before us big bad Americans came over with intimidating black ships and demanded they trade with us (Commodore Perry 1854). After that, being the extremely efficient peoples they are, they modernized rapidly and yearned for the material wealth that the West was enjoying. I can't speak for the entirety of the 20th century in Japan, but here in 2009, the Japanese are a shopping bunch. Whenever I try to make plans with a Japanese friend, they always suggest shopping even if I mention that I'm trying to save money or that I don't really need anything. I've ended up on more than one shopping trip where I just nod in agreement numbly as my friend gushes over this or that. こわいい、ね。(Cute, isn't it?) Going to dinner frequently ends with the suggestion of heading to this store or that for "just a minute." When I asked a young, single Japanese friend what she normally does on a date, she answered without a moment's hesitation, "We go to dinner and go shopping." The consumer culture is so ingrained in Japanese society that it seems to engulf peoples' lives and finances. Even little old Nagaoka has multiple depato (department stores) and huge mall complexes.

No one's perfect and we're all going to buy something unnecessary every once in awhile, but it doesn't have to be every day or every week or even every month! Before you going shopping the next time you get an urge, ask yourself if you really need it. Watch this and hopefully, you'll see why your shopping can be so harmful to yourself, your planet, and your neighbors near and far.

The Story of Stuff

p.s. There's a new photo album (link to the right) of our fun fun fun BBQ at the beach a few weeks back!

Our Imperialist Nation

2009-05-23T17:29:00.002+09:00

One of my Japanese friends asked me the yesterday, "How many states are there in the United States?"

"50."

"Really? I thought you guys had gotten more since the last flag was created."

"Ummm... no. We're not really in the business of obtaining new states as I understand it."

"Oh... I thought the U.S.A. was always getting new states."

Good to see that we're projecting a good image in other parts of the world. Hmmmmm.

Slowing Down

2009-05-19T06:39:00.003+09:00

I wrote an article about NOT driving for a website created by the very brilliant Jessica Brothers. You can read it here:

http://www.spirit-self.com/2009/05/slowing-down

Changes All Around

2009-05-17T14:58:00.003+09:00

It's been quite the busy month. As the month began, we spent our Golden Week in Kyoto and Osaka. It was great fun. Dustin lost his phone right before we left. I made dire predictions of us losing each other forever in the big metropolis of Kyoto/Osaka, so of course that's almost exactly what we did. After a two hour breakfast spent waiting for the hotel to open in Osaka, we headed to the subway station and found the platform where we could catch a subway to our hotel. I thought Dustin was right behind me, but he'd stopped to ask a conductor if it was in fact the correct train. As the train pulled away from the station, I stood gaping through the window at a stupefied Dustin, standing on the platform staring at me inside the train. Luckily, we both made it to the proper subway station and found each other.

We did oh so much in Osaka, so I'll point out the highlights:

Bow Wow Café: We got to play with dogs while enjoying a tasty beverage. It was fun for a while, but the dogs were highly motivated by expensive treats we refused to buy, so they didn't hang around us for long.
IMAX Dinosaur DX 3D: Super Awesome!!! I couldn't understand any of the facts other than most of the numbers, but the visual effects were all I needed to be impressed.
The World's Largest Giant Ferris Wheel (highly debatable): We went at night, so we got a lovely view of the nighttime skyline. Dustin terrified me by rocking the car, but we made it down safely.
DiJest: We happened upon a great sports bar that was completely empty, so we had free range of all of the dart boards, golfing, pinball machines, foosball, air hockey, and board games we could handle. I was backgammon champion, of course.

Next stop was Kyoto. Like Osaka, we spent most of our time exploring on foot and eating wonderful wonderful food. While on vacation, we had Indian food, Middle Eastern food, and Thai food, which are all non-existent in Nagaoka. It was amazing. Besides eating and walking and walking and eating and walking some more, we saw loads and loads of temples in Kyoto. Dustin argues that we didn't actually see any since we technically did not enter any of them, but I saw the grounds and outside of at least 5 really giant temples and countless smaller ones. Here are the Kyoto highlights:

Kyoto National Museum: The architecture of the Special Exhibition Hall was an interesting mix. I thought I was in Paris again until I looked closer at the lounging figures adorning the building and saw their Asian eyes. Inside the gorgeous building, was an exhibition on Zen Buddhism. All of the artifacts from Myoshin Temple were brought to the museum before the original temple was destroyed in a war. Most of the art work was clearly ancient. I enjoyed seeing all of these holy artifacts; however, it would have been more beneficial if I could have read the scrolls and letters, almost all of which were in kanji.
Rumic World: Rumiko Takahashi is a manga artist I like. Before coming to Japan, I liked almost no manga or anime, but in the past few months, I've come to appreciate a small selection of anime. (I can't quite read the manga yet.) Ranma 1/2 is an anime that Dustin and I have been watching for some time now about a male martial artist who turns into a girl whenever he's doused in cold water, because of falling into a cursed spring. Seeing the original art and giant portraits not entirely related to the series was really intriguing. If you're interested in anime, all of Rumiko's series are cute and funny.
Tezuka Osamu Theatre and Mini-Library: More anime! This permanent exhibition in Kyoto Station celebrated Tezuka Osamu's huge volume of work. He's the "Father of Anime." He created Astro Boy, the cute little rocket boy on my bank card, and Kimba the White Lion, who is the basis for Simba from The Lion King. He's basically the Japanese equivalent of Walt Disney. We watched a short video collage of some of his popular anime series and flipped through a few of his manga after posing for pictures near Astro Boy.
Okonomiyaki to Karaoke: Our friend from Nagaoka, Scott, and his parents were also visiting Kyoto, so we met up for some dinner and drinks. We had okonomiyaki, a type of pizza/pancake that's made from flour and eggs and various ingredients. After dinner, we headed to a very local little bar. It had ten seats, three of which were occupied by some neighborhood guys. With me, Dustin, Scott, Scott's friend John, and Scott's two parents, we were a party of 6, so we pretty much filled up the place. At this particular bar, regulars buy a bottle of sake or shochu and the bartender puts their name on it. They didn't have much of a choice as far as drinks went. Dustin ordered a rum and cola and we had to explain how it was made to the bartender before she walked out the door and got a Coke from the vending machine. Surprisingly, she pulled out a karaoke remote and told us we could sing all night long. We immediately got down to it and even pulled one of the innocent bystanders into a Red Hot Chili Pepper's song. When I questioned Scott's dad about his lack of karaoke-ing he said that he wasn't a very talented singer. I said, "Oh, we're all just having fun." He responded with "Yeah, but John and Dustin actually sound good." Burn... It was still a very fun night indeed!
Sightseeing: I'll lump it all together, since it was interesting to see some great historical sites, but you wouldn't want to be bored with minor details about each one. We saw a very old Japanese garden, important temples including a Golden Temple, a castle, and botanical gardens. We also saw Gion, which is the geisha area, but they were all hidden away and we didn't want to pay $40 each just to see them pour some tea, so we didn't actually see any geishas the whole time we were in Kyoto.
Arashiyama Monkey Park: For the most part, I'm not a supporter of zoos, since they keep the animals locked up in tiny compartments and often in environments very much unlike their appropriate environment. This monkey park, however, was an open air sanctuary for the monkeys. Monkeys have been in this part of Japan for a long time, but the city has encroached upon their habitat. The monkey park was a hearty hike up a mountain on the outskirts of Kyoto. The only fences are to mark the territory and can easily be climbed by the nimble monkeys. There's nothing to force the monkeys to stay in the park; they stick around, because they like the nuts and fruit that people are permitted to feed them in a small area of the park. Visitors are put in a cage and they can stick their food out through the mesh. The monkeys come and go as they please. One crawled right up next to me on the bench where I sat and started to rifle through my purse before I snatched it away. My favorite part of the park was just watching the monkeys doing things that reminded me of human behavior.
Everyday Monks: Buddhism is very important in Kyoto. It's where Buddhism started in Japan. The oldest temple in Japan is there. Monks weren't exactly EVERYWHERE, but you ran into monks more often than you do in Nagaoka at least. Sometimes, you could catch a monk doing very unmonkly things. We saw a monk leaving a temple at sunset with a briefcase. Another monk was spraying pesticide on the garden around a temple. Finally, we saw a monk on the subway carrying 6 dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts. Hmmm... not very zen.
Falafel Gardens: There are few things I miss from America, but healthy and easily accessible vegetarian food definitely tops the list. So, I was in vegetarian heaven in Kyoto. We found a falafel restaurant and made plans to make it there on the last day. Unfortunately, we hadn't budgeted very well and we only had $20 left for dinner before we caught our bus home. The falafel sandwiches were quite expensive, so we did the math and determined that we could get 3 half-sandwiches. They were so tasty! We finished them, paid, and reluctantly left, wanting more. As we walked back to the subway station, we passed a 7-11, so we decided to try the ATM despite being told that our ATM cards probably wouldn't work during Golden Week. When I put my card in, it was rejected. But when Dustin put his in, we were surprised to see more money in his account than there was before we'd left for vacation. Dustin's share of the Japanese stimulus plan had come through! We quickly withdrew some money and headed back to the falafel restaurant. After enduring some giggles from the staff, we ordered a huge platter of falafel, hummus, and baba ghanoush and ate until our buttons popped.

We had a lovely vacation and you can see pictures by following the links on the right. There're 3 albums this time! We came back happy, but tired... and determined to make our way back there someday. Dustin was transfixed by one particular museum, the Folk Art Museum, mostly filled with pottery. There were plenty of other ancient baubles that Dustin drooled over in both Kyoto and Osaka. At some point in our trip, Dustin realized that he really missed anthropology. We've been teaching for 7 months, so I've been involved with my major since I graduated, but Dustin hasn't had anything to do with anthropology in all this time. He wants to get back to studying about human culture, especially in Japan. So... we're hoping to move down to Kyoto/Osaka at some point in the nearish future, so that Dustin can go to graduate school. This won't be for a while, but it's a new goal.

Another goal is to find a new apartment. We just can't stay in these two tiny apartments any longer. Our kitchen is so small that we don't want to cook nearly as much as we did in the States and when we do cook in our apartment, we can't cook anything elaborate since we only have one burner and no oven. Plus, we're paying more for two tiny apartments than we would for a much more spacious single apartment. Hopefully, we'll be able to find an apartment that will let us sign a one year lease. Both of us recently renewed our contracts for 12 months, so we'll be here for at least another year and a half with Peppy before trying to get down south to Kyoto/Osaka.

The biggest changes are work-related. We both currently work for Peppy Kids Club, which is a division of KTC Holdings, a huge corporation that makes English language education materials and has a wide variety of English language schools. Peppy Kids Club, the company Dustin and I have been working for for the past 7 months, used to teach kids from 2 1/2 until junior high school. This year, they've added high school classes. Dustin doesn't teach any of those classes, but I have 3 high school classes, and I surprisingly enjoy them. We'll also have new baby classes added to our curriculum soon. Beyond Peppy Kids Club, Dustin and I have both also just agreed to work for Goosky's, an English school similar to Peppy, but primarily for younger students. We'll be working with babies (and their mothers) and pre-schoolers. I go to training Tuesday and start at my new school in June. I've also agreed to do a special weekend seminar for high school students hoping to pass a prestigious English test. Summer School is coming up and we've been preparing for that. At the beginning of August, we'll work 7 days straight and our hours will be longer on each of these days and the classes will be twice as big as the ones we teach now. Joy! And my boss asked me to be his assistant, which I'm pretty sure doesn't really mean anything, but that could potentially produce some more work at some point in the future. So, work has gotten very very very busy.

Lastly, Dustin and I are coming to Missouri for Christmas! In case you aren't on facebook, I'll repeat the plan here. We'll be coming in the night of December 17 and staying in Kansas City for a few days before coming down to Springfield for a while. We'll be taking care of wedding business, seeing friends and family, and I will definitely be enjoying some burritos. We'll head back to Kansas City on January 2nd before taking off for Japan once more on the morning of the 3rd. I can't wait!

I'm a little overwhelmed with all of the changes present and future, but I'm simultaneously excited! I hope Spring has come to you in the U.S. It blessed us with its presence for about a week in Nagaoka before quickly leaving us in the cold again! I can't wait for warm, sunny days!

Bicycle Thief

2009-04-29T13:07:00.004+09:00

Japan is known for being one of the safest countries on Earth. There's little to no crime here. Two things, however, are constantly being stolen in Japan: umbrellas and bikes. Dustin has been the victim of umbrella thievery in the past. Ironically, it was stolen right out of his bike. And as of last week, I, too, have been victimized.

We had a rare early morning meeting, so I stumbled out of bed, dressed, and made my way to the train station slightly after the ungodly hour of 8:00. I parked my bike across the street from my favorite conbini, a spot in which I frequently leave my bike for the days' travels outside of Nagaoka. I went about my incredibly long day (It only included about 5 hours of actual work, but all of those train rides can wear one out.) and came back to the station in Nagaoka around 9:30 to retrieve my bike and make my way home. To my shock and horror, my bike was NOT in the place I had parked it.

Someone is employed to move the bikes around, so that the maximum number of bikes can be parked on the sidewalks leading to the train station. Initially, I thought my bike must have been moved, so I spent about half an hour walking up and down the streets around the train station searching for my bike. I tried my key in any maroon bike that even remotely resembled my beloved bike, but to no avail.

Eventually, I gave up hope in finding it at that particular mo

ment and I went to the koban (police box) to report the bike stolen. The police officer told me that I would need the registration number of my bike to make a report. I went home defeated, looked for the little slip of paper I'd "filed" away somewhere back in October, and had no more luck finding that than I'd had finding my bike. After asking around, I discovered that the store where I'd bought my bike should have the registration number.

Luckily, I had the receipt for my bicycle, so I went to the store, and with much of Dustin's help, and even more of Dustin's Japanese/English dictionary's help, we conveyed to the customer service department that the bike I'd bought from them on October 26 was stolen, and I'd lost the registration number, and I needed a copy. Everything

was made much more complicated by the fact that we registered the bike under Dustin's name since he chose that bike before becoming dissatisfied with its lack of manliness and passing it on to a grateful me. Thus, Dustin had to do most of the talking since it was technically his bike. The very helpful staff retrieved all of the registration slips and started looking for one with "Dustin Asby" printed neatly in the boxes provided. There were completed forms for October 25 and October 27, but none for October 26. There was one shady slip for the 26th that was blank, but no one could be sure that was our bike's registration number. I wrote it down anyways and headed back to the koban.

A cute little grandpa was behind the counter. He explained that he was a retired policeman volunteering. I pointed to the helpful picture menu of all of the things that could be wrong, and indicated that "It was taken." (It's the little one in the far left corner of the picture above.) He started to help us fill out the stolen goods report. Over the course of nearly two hours, we learned the etymology of several Japanese words and explained the difference between "pavement," "sidewalk," and "concrete." At long last, we thought he understood exactly what we were trying to say and we understood most of what he was trying to say. Dustin had to rush off to catch a train, so I was left to put my fingerprints in all of the places where we'd had to change the form, because of mistakes. Needless to say, that form looked like a pepperoni pizza.

The nice little old grandpa was on the phone with the store that sold me my bike and I was signing my last form. I was getting ready to leave, when my little volunteer policeman came over and said, "This number tabun (maybe) your bike." I said, "Yes. Maybe." I realized I'd forgotten to fully explain that aspect of the registration number and suddenly I felt guilty about not disclosing this information. He repeated "This number tabun your bike. Underhand." At this point, my heart dropped and tears rushed to my eyes. This nice little Japanese (read: normally extremely non-confrontational) man was calling me underhanded. I stumbled over my words in broken Japanese, "Sorry. Excuse me. Yes. Maybe. Bike me maybe. I don't know. Sorry." He looked confused and said, "If we find the bike with this number we will call you. Underhand?" Ah! He was asking if I understand... Embarrassed, I muttered, "Hai. Arigato Gozaimasu," and rushed out suppressing the unwarranted tears.

The fate of my bike was now in the police's hands. Meanwhile, I looked at everyone riding a maroon bike with a mixture of jealously and suspicion. I continued to try my key in any and every maroon bike. That night, armed with the potential registration number, I started to look at numbers printed on the bright green stickers on all of the bikes. Parked about 4 blocks from the last location I'd seen my bike was a maroon bike with this same registration number. I was drawn to that one by a sense of familiarity. I excitedly tried my key in the lock, but it didn't budge. I stepped back and noticed that this bike was missing the little Peppy Kids Club phone jewel I use to distinguish my bike from all of the other identical ones. I walked away disappointed, but something made me turn around and try again. And once more, my key failed. This time, however, I noticed that it was because the lock had been busted. I jimmied it back into place and tried my key again; this time with success. My seat had been lowered all the way down, both tires were pretty low, my bike basket was bashed in, and the phone jewel with which I adorned my bike was no where to be found, but I couldn't have been happier to be reunited with my favorite bike in the world. Apparently, a very short thieve stole my bike for three days, potentially wrecked it, and returned it. I like to think that my bike recognized the intruder and made each ride intentionally dangerous and difficult, so that the thief would be forced to return it to its rightful owner. I went out and bought an extra bike lock for both my bike and Dustin's. In the end, I proved to be a better bike detective than the Nagaoka police force. I will never forget the word for bicycle in Japanese: jidensha.

In other adventures, ohanami (cherry blossom viewing party) was divine. We went south to Takada to have a day long picnic under the falling blossoms with some friends. It was a gorgeous day weatherwise, peoplewise, and flowerwise. We all piled our massive amounts of food and drink in the middle; everyone was eating and drinking all day long. When the food and drinks we'd brought with us started to get low, we took to the streets, which were lined with festival vendors, and bought festival goodies such as pancakes stuffed with eggplant, corn on the cob, and a wide variety of meats on a stick. It was Easter Sunday, so we made sure to honor God by joining a Japanese gospel choir wearing afro wigs in a rendition of "This Little Light of Mine." Be sure to check out the two photo albums of pictures from this magical day of fun.

I must now sign off and begin packing for our Golden Week trip to Kyoto and Osaka. We leave tonight on a night bus for a 9 hour bus trip south where it's sunny and warm! Whoo-hoo! We'll be gone for 7 whole days of glorious vacation. Neither of us have had more than the typical weekend off since Christmas, and we're both more than ready to venture outside of Niigata-ken. I promise to write about it at some point in the future when we return. Happy Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day, and Children's Day!

Let's TV

2009-03-26T22:59:00.002+09:00

I was wandering around The Daily Beast and I stumbled upon this interesting little article about celebrities selling out overseas by doing commercials they'd never be caught dead in on the U.S. airwaves. Not surprisingly, most of the commercials were Japanese ones.

They're pretty funny and they managed to capture quite a wide range of Japanese products that Dustin and I regularly use. My favorite of all of the commercials is the Wes Anderson-directed one starring Brad Pitt. Though you'd never know it, what's being advertised is the cell phone company yours truly uses herself. Softbank is the company most gaijin (foreigners) use, probably because it's one of the few with a useful English helpline. That came in very handy when our first bill was $250 instead of the $8 we'd expected...

The commercial featuring Ah-nold is for an elixir/energy drink. While Dustin might not drink that specific brand (and maybe he does, I don't scrutinize the bottles), he quite often downs an elixir in the morning for a little boost. Elixirs are everywhere. Typical western medicine isn't falling off the shelves like it is back home, but traditional remedies like a mixture of herbs and vitamins are everywhere. The mindset is that you're not just to drink them when you're immune system is down, but for general health. I can't stomach them. They taste like cough medicine, but slimier. Dustin swears by them. He even bought a few of the Final Fantasy brand elixirs when they were in the conbinis for a few weeks.

Finally, there is a Ben Stiller commercial for Chu-Hi. Not only is that my preferrred Japanese-style drinks, lemon (the flavor advertised here) is usually the flavor I choose. Many girls in Japan pick this up from the conbini and sneak it in to a karaoke session. The last commercial in the article, the Harrison Ford advert for Kirin beer, is selling a beer I sometimes find Dustin drinking.

They are pretty funny. Check them out yourself:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-24/12-best-foreign-celebrity-ads/

Sake, yum yum yum

2009-03-24T19:22:00.004+09:00

Last Sunday, we went up to Niigata for a sake tasting festival. Over a hundred different types of sake all from Niigata prefecture! It vaguely reminded me of the wedding expo Dustin and I visited this summer. I left the sake tasting festival feeling much less accomplished than when I left the wedding expo, though I did manage to drink more cups of sake in one day than I had ever previously drank.

Before coming to Japan, I thought all sake tasted just about the same, like a watered down version of vodka. Now, I can certainly say that almost every sake tastes as different as every flower smells. I tried some very weak sake that tasted like water, some very strong sake that burned my throat, some sakura sake that had a slight hint of cherry blossoms, some lime sake that tasted very citrusy, some champagne sake that tasted like sweet sparkling wine. There was warm sake and cold sake, each with its own subtleties.

We took a break from the sake tasting to put some food in our stomachs and watch some fellow sake-tasters get roped into pounding the rice for mochi or perhaps future sake, I'm not sure which. I happened to sit next to a nice older man who had already consumed his fair share of sake. He asked me if I'd tasted "The Number One Sake." I didn't think I had, but I couldn't be sure. He pointed out which booth it was on the map of the festival. We made our way there by the end of the evening, with only a few minutes before the festival was to finish. It was definitely the number one sake. It was so crisp and refreshing. It had won the prize of best sake in Niigata prefecture the year before; Niigata is known throughout Japan for having high quality rice, thus high quality sake. Since the festival was over, the Number One Sake guy just kept pouring us cup after overflowing cup of really expensive sake. He was trying to finish off the bottles of already opened sake instead of tossing them out. We picked the perfect time to visit that booth.

We even sampled cigars at the festival. We each grabbed a free cigar (actually, I just tried a puff of Dustin's) and headed outside to the special cigar tent. The tent seemed a bit crowded, so we tried our cigars outside. Kyoko's was mysteriously broken in half, but she puffed on it for a while before giving up and breaking off the useless nub.

The speed in which the festival was cleaned up was amazing. The Japanese are truly efficient. The festival ended at 5:00. We straggled out around 5:10 and they were half-way cleaned up by then. I imagine that this huge convention hall was spotless by 5:30.

The only regret I have about the sake tasting festival is that the sake flavored gelato ran out before I had a chance to give it a try. One of our friends tried it soon after arriving, because she is obviously much smarter than me. She said it was delicious. I believe her. I've already tried melon, green tea, and red bean ice cream since coming to Japan. All of which were quite interesting. Sake and black pepper are two flavors I'll be on the look out for!

p.s. There are a few pictures of the sake festival in the "Oh, Brother" album, which you can link to on the right hand side of the blog.

Sickness in Motion

2009-03-10T11:19:00.002+09:00

(Disclaimer: This story is slightly gross, so don't read it if you are eating or thinking about eating in the near future.)

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling too well, but I won't give up a precious day's pay, so I went to work anyway. I had to go to Naoestu, which is my farthest away school, an hour and a half train ride. I normally enjoy this train ride, because I can sit back and relax, listen to music, maybe play DS, or read. On this particular day, however, I started to feel a bit queasy. Usually, I sit in the seats that face the direction the train is going in, but none of these were available, so I sat in a seat that puts you in a position where you are moving sideways. My state of nausea, unfamiliar traveling position, and the fact that the heated seat felt especially heated combined disastrously and caused me to vomit right there on the train. At the time, there was still a good long hour until I reached my destination. Thinking it would be helpful or perhaps not thinking at all, I caught most of the sick in my hands. Then, I was left with two handfuls of puke and no idea what to do with it. I looked around at my fellow passengers, but they all looked away if I caught their eye. I hoped that someone would open one of the doors near me at the next stop, but no one around me got on or off the train.

I just stared at my hands wondering how I could possibly make this a better situation. Some high school girls came over and stood next to me for about 30 seconds before realizing I was holding vomit. They quickly shrieked and ran away. Finally, three stops after the unfortunate incident, someone nearby got off and thankfully left the door open. I poured my puked out the train door onto the tracks. I figured I'd be able to clean myself up once I got rid of the excess vomit, but it didn't occur to me that my hands would still have a pukey film on them. I went back to staring at my hands wondering what to do next. I didn't have much time to think though.

About 2 seconds after I sat back down, all of my fellow passengers, who had ignored me and pretended nothing was wrong for 3 whole stops, surrounded me. About 5 packs of tissue were shoved in my face, a handful of wet wipes were given to me, and an older lady started cleaning off my face with a hand towel. Someone produced two plastic bags: one for all of the used tissues and wet wipes and another for my sweater and my scarf, which would be useless for the rest of day, leaving me slightly colder than I would have liked. We reached a major stop shortly after this and most of the people who ended up helping me got off there. The old woman asked if I was getting off at Kashiwazaki and I said, 'No, Naoestu." She frowned at me and I could tell she wanted to offer some words of encouragement, but she didn't think I'd understand. She took the bag of trash off with her and said, "Ganbatte," or "Good luck./You can do it."

Long time... long post

2009-03-03T16:40:00.005+09:00

Sumimasen. Sorry for the long gap in posts. No excuse really. Just laziness. Plenty of excitement has been had by all, but I just couldn't motivate myself to share it with you lovely people. That having been said, let me share some of my goals for 2009:

*Cook one new recipe a week

*Study Japanese for 3 hours or more each week

*Plan the best wedding you or anyone you know has ever been to

*Eat a bit healthier (All those adorable Japanese sweets are so tempting!)

*Travel outside of Niigata 3 times

*Write on this here blog twice a month at minimum

*Do yoga and meditate more often

In the first two months of 2009, I've come closer to achieving some goals more than others. Our new Peppy School Year is starting in April and Spring is on the door step, so I feel a greater sense of renewal now than I did in January. I've been feeling sick for the past few weeks and therefore grumpier than usual, but now I'm feeling much better. With a happier demeanor, perhaps I can stick to my goals a bit more successfully. And now that I've put them out here on the internet for all to see, hopefully you guys can keep me accountable and bug me about my progress with these goals.

What have I been up to besides making and failing to meet personal goals? Well... At the end of January, one of my friends, Jessica, turned 23, so a bunch of us headed to Niigata to celebrate in "the big city." One of my other friends, Cat, is a belly dancer and teaches at a studio in Niigata. The owner of the jazz club below her studio told her about a jazz performance in the club that night and said she should bring all her gaijin friends with her. The performance started at 9:00, but we were only half-way through our bottle of wine and pizza at that point in the night. We finally made it to the studio around 10:45 and the performance was well underway. The club was packed. There were at least two people sitting on every chair and it appeared that every inch of floor space was covered by someone's shoes. The entrance door to the club led directly to the stage. When we peaked past the door, the owner waved us in, but there was no where to go. She continued to wave us in, so we headed for the only open area of the club, behind the bar. We had to cross the stage and walk in front of the audience to reach the bar. When the band finished their song, the club applauded the musicians and then gave the new audience members, us, a round of applause for being foreigners. The music was great though I only understood the very few English phrases thrown in here and there. It was my second Japanese jazz experience and I must say it is one musical genre they've translated beautifully. We were all enjoying the music when the owner got on the mic and announced there would be a belly dancing performance. Cat looked around the room for the belly dancer for a moment before realizing that she was about to do an impromptu belly dancing show to some jazz music. If she was nervous, it didn't show. She got up in front of the crowd and danced beautifully to songs I doubt any other belly dancer has ever used in a performance.

After a mint martini or two at cozy Café 37, we decided to head back to the station where we had stored our bags in lockers. We had planned to stay at a sento, an onsen/hostel. We got to the station and found, to our shock and horror, that Niigata Station was closed until 6:00 a.m.! We walked around the station looking for different entrances that might possibly be open, but to no avail. It didn't take us long to decide that the only place to wait out 4 hours until the station reopened was a karaoke bar. Some of us were more tired than others and fell asleep at random intervals throughout the karaoke performances. Cat was dozing off one minute and the next, I looked up to find her dancing around on the benches. Joe and I both took a little nap and then simultaneously popped up to join Jessica in a lovely rendition of Britney Spear's "Lucky." Yusuf's friend, referred to by all as Brother, had the most dramatic sleeping experience. In the middle of a tirade about something none of us can quite recall, he decided to pass out, falling suddenly on the table spilling water about and breaking a few glasses.

We went to retrieve our bags from the station at 6:00 a.m. We got to the sento, had a quick bath and fell asleep quite easily. Around 11:00, we began to wake up, bathe, and stumble around wishing we'd stayed on our cots a little longer. We had some Indian food, spend many hours in Starbucks trying to wake up, and ended the birthday revelry by engaging in one of Jessica's favorite activities, purikura.

Dustin and I decided to stay in Niigata an extra night on account of our Round One addiction. We played medals, but lost big time. We decided to come back in the morning for SportCha, the 3 hours of free play. Check out at the sento was 9:00 in the morning. Luckily, it was right next to Round One. We checked out at 8:50, ran into the conbini for breakfast, and headed to Round One. Unfortunately, we didn't know that Round One doesn't open until 10:00. So, we spent an hour in the snowy cold waiting and waiting and waiting. Once we got in, we decided to spend just an hour and a half at SportCha since I was especially tired and crabby. I spent my entire ninety minutes in the massage chair room listening to some relaxing Philip Glass. It was 1500 yen well spent.

All in all, it was a fun weekend; however, the hour spent outside Round One combined with the hours of sleep lost on our adventurous night cost me my health for a week. Luckily, it was an office week and I spent most of my time at a desk, being particularly un-genki. I did have to fill in for a co-worker at the end of the week. I tried to don one of the surgical masks courteous Japanese people wear to keep their sickness to themselves, but after 5 minutes, I thought I was going to suffocate. I don't know how they wear them all day long. It made me feel even sicker. By some miracle, I had a rare three day weekend, so I spent many hours in bed and drank loads of o.j. Dustin, being the kind and loving fiancé that he is, went to the drug store to find something to make me all better. He brought back Strong Wakamoto. On the box, there is a picture of a girl holding her chest, a picture of a girl holding her stomach, picture of a guy flexing his obviously strong muscle, and a lot of kanji that we didn't understand in the least. Dustin said he thought they were general vitamins to build a strong immune system. I was sickly, so I didn't question him and starting taking 3-4 a day. He took one occasionally to fight off any potential immune system deficiencies. After about a week, I began to feel better, but I didn't know if extra vitamin C, lots of sleeping, or Strong Wakamoto deserved credit. I wasn't sure if I should continue to take these vitamins, especially if I didn't know exactly what they were. I wasn't too worried, since the Japanese don't really do medicine and almost anything you find at the drugstore is actually a bunch of herbs and vitamins. Still, my curiosity had to be sated, so we (and by we, I mean Dustin) looked up all of the kanji that were written on the front of the box. Much to our surprise, we discovered that we'd both been taking an anti-constipation pill for about 7 days! It must not work too well, because neither of us noticed too much of a change in that area. Needless to say, I will be translating anything and everything I put in my body from now on.

January and February were very snowy months. When I first realized the snow was going to be sticking around longer than the 2-3 weeks I'm used to in Missouri, I retreated to my apartment where my warm blankets and space heater kept me unfrozen. After weeks of laziness and boredom, I gave in and decided to participate in some Japanese winter activities. Some of the Peppy teachers formed a team to compete in the International Snowball Fight Championship (also known as the World Snowball Fight Championship depending on which banners or literature you read). It was my first Japanese festival complete with vendors selling squid on a stick, chocolate covered bananas, and sake starting at 8:00 a.m. The boys began drinking beer around 9:30, but I waited to try some Niigata sake until 11:00. I had just enough time to finish my cup before we had to fight our enemies. Since girls could be hit 5 times before being out and boys could only be hit 3 times before being finished, I was declared the team captain. I had a lot of pressure on me, because the rules stated that if the captain got out, the team lost. As team captain, I was required to dress like an idiot. I was given the type of hat a rice farmer might wear, giant snow shoes, and a huge wooden paddle with which I could defend myself. Some of the teams come just for the costume competition. Teams like the Obamas, the girly men, and the banana-head girls weren't there as serious snowball fighters; they just wanted to dress up and have fun. Our first competitors were a bunch of girls dressed up and not serious about winning. We creamed them. The second team we fought, however, was full of baseball players, who were much more athletic than anyone on our team. In this case, we were the ones creamed. Towards the end, I looked around and realized that Dustin and I were the only ones standing. I said, "Dustin, we're the only ones left." Moments later, Dustin was out, too, and I suddenly found myself retreating into the fetal position trying to escape the barrage of snowballs raining down on me. Defeated though we were, we didn't let it get our spirits down. A few magical rides down the hill on sleds and 10 minutes of awesome BMX bike tricks and everyone was more than happy. We'll spend next winter training and be champions in 2010!

The weekend after the snowball fight, we headed to another mountain for snowboarding. Neither Dustin nor I had ever tried the sport, but we'd skiied before, so we figured we could get it easily enough. We rented snowsuits and snowboards and scampered up the practice hill to learn the ways of the board. Our friend Mikiko gave us tips and showed us how to fall and get back up. I mastered the falling part, but never quite got the getting back up without taking the board off first. Dustin slid down the hill a few times before feeling confident enough to hop on the lift and snowboard down the mountain. Mikiko asked if I wanted to come along, but I opted to stay on the hill and practice a while longer. When she'd made it up and back down again, I was still trying to make it down the 50 foot hill without falling and it wasn't going well. My frustration was obvious, so Yuko, Mikiko's friend, suggested I switch to skis, which I'd told them I had tried before. What I hadn't told them was about my last experience with skis, when my much more experienced sister had taken me on black diamond hill where I freaked out half-way down and had to be carried down by the ski resort staff on a snowmobile.

I got to the top of the practice hill, donned my skis, and skied down the hill flawlessly. At the bottom of the hill, I was greeted by a joyful Mikiko and Yuko clapping and telling me what a great skier I was. (It's the Japanese way to overly praise. My friends and colleagues are continually amazed at my Japanese despite the fact that I know a very limited set of useful phrases and Japanese characters.) They suggested that we go to the top. I was slightly nervous, but I knew they would wait with me all day if I didn't go then and there, and I didn't want to delay their fun any longer. The view on the ride to the top was peaceful and gorgeous, but as we got closer and closer to the end of the lift, I got increasingly terrified. I wasn't ready for this.

Mikiko sailed down the moutain on her snowboard, but she asked Yuko to stay with me, since she was on skis, too. I started going down the beginners path slowly and not so surely. I remembered that I need to make a pizza shape to slow down and I just kept pushing the backs of my skis out further and further until I'd slow down to a halt and then speed up a bit until I got scared again. Yuko tried to give me pointers, but we had a major language barrier. We got down the mountain about a third of the way and suddenly, it got very steep. I tried to make the pizza, but I pushed out my skis too far and they crossed and I tumbled down, slamming hard on my right shoulder. Memories of my last skiing experience flooded back and any sliver of confidence I'd had left my body. Yuko helped me get grounded again and put my skis back on, but I just kept falling over and over again, each time landing hard on my right shoulder. Eventually, the pain and terror became too much. I didn't want to go on, but I literally didn't know how to tell Yuko. I pointed to my shoulder and said, "Itai," or "Hurt." She said, "Daijobu?" or "Are you ok?" I said, "Daijobu nai. Kowai." or "I'm ok no. Fear." We looked at each other not knowing what to say or do. I started repeating, "Kowai... itai... kowai... itai... kowai."

The pain, anxiety, and frustration got to me, and I started to cry. I'd only met Yuko a few hours before and she really didn't know what to do and was getting increasingly more uncomfortable. Being the polite Japanese girl she was, she tried ever so hard to make me feel better and assure me everything would be ok. She said, "Walk?" I really didn't want to walk the remaining third of the mountain carrying my skis with a bum shoulder, but it seemed a far superior choice to skiing the rest of the way down. I slung the skis over my left shoulder and started to walk while she went to put her skis on to, I assumed, ski the rest of the way down alone. She must have called Mikiko to ask her what to do, because I walked down for about 5 minutes before Yuko found me and told me to stick my skiis in the snow and called Mikiko to explain to me that the medic was coming to take me the rest of the way down. Yuko and I sat awkwardly in the snow, not able to say much to each other. I hadn't bothered to enjoy the scenery until she said, "It's beautiful." and pointed to the view. Since we were just sitting there and it was rather breathtaking, I decided to take a picture. Tears were streaming down my face, but Yuko thought I should be in the picture. She motioned that I should wipe away the tears and said, "Don't cry." before snapping a photo. It was an oddly sweet moment. A short while later, the medic came, I got on the back of yet another snowmobile and had quite the déja vu. I spent the remainder of the day in the "lodge" drinking tea and reading. A trip to onsen after skiing, a lidocaine patch, and a few days of moving my arm as little as humanly possible did wonders and I have no lasting damage from my second traumatic skiing experience. Maybe I'll try it again next year, but I'll wait to buy a lift pass until I've spent half the day on the practice hill. And I will be taking a Japanese class at the Civic Center starting in April, so I can better communicate with everyone.

*Photos of the snowboarding trip are at the end of the "Oh, Brother" album and the snowball fight photos are now at the top of the list!

Back to the Grind

2009-01-16T13:05:00.004+09:00

We've been back to work for about two weeks now. Peppy gave us nearly three weeks off before making our jobs slightly more stressful for the next two months. We have parent observations at our schools at the moment. That means that students and their parents are squeezed into our tiny classrooms. The parents usually sit as close as possible to the door and stare blankly at you as you interact with their child in a language they don't understand for an hour. In one respect, it's a bit better, because most of the students are better behaved when their parents are looking on. Some, however, decide to show off their ability to annoy the teacher and act a little worse than normal. I'm told that the parents often report that they enjoyed the lesson even if their facial expressions lead you to believe otherwise. If that's the case, I'll take those bored looks as a compliment.

The worst part of the return to work is the commute. I normally enjoy my train rides immensely. Because it's the peak of winter, however, getting from my apartment to my classrooms is very difficult indeed. Every day, I sadly pass my bike wishing I could use her to get around like I used to. Dustin bravely rides through the snow covered streets. The one time I tried, I nearly wrecked my bike on the icy streets so many times that I've scared myself from even attempting to hop on again until the snowy weather has passed. I haven't decided which I like less: trudging through the side streets left uncleared of their foot high piles of snow or the bigger streets with spouts of water shooting out of the ground creating an icy sheet by nightfall. Sometimes, you run into an over-enthusiastic spout of water that hits you right in the thigh, leaving your upper leg wet and cold. The snow and wind have made the trains unreliable. I've had to wait on the platform hoping and hoping my train will eventually come like it is supposed to only to catch the next train an hour later. I understand that snow is a part of winter all over the world. I've experienced my fair share of snow and ice storms in my lifetime. I've just never had to endure such extreme weather for an entire month. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon.

The snow has forced us to take taxis more frequently. For our schools that are a 45 minute walk from the station, we have to take a taxi both to get there and back to the train station. Since Dustin and I work at these schools (which are in the same Academy Plaza) during the same week, we get to take the taxi at the end of the night together. This taxi comes at the same time each night, so our boss reserves it for the whole week and it just shows up and takes us away. To get to the classroom from the station is much more of a hassle. Our classes start at different times each day, so we arrive at the station separately and take different taxis to the classrooms. We choose when we get to school, so we have to reserve the taxis on our own. Dustin has a good enough command of the language to get his taxis easily enough. I, however, have had a long "conversation" with the taxi company each day I try to convince them to pick me up. The first time I called, I relayed the train station where I needed to be picked up and the location I needed to be taken. The time at which I needed the taxi was hard to convey. The word for 3 is san and the word for thousand is sen, easily confused. I needed to be picked up at 3:20. I assumed they were asking what time to come, so I kept repeating sen ni ju, or thousand twenty. The taxi employee kept repeating the same question, that I continued to assume was "What time should the taxi come?" and I kept repeating thousand twenty. This went on for a few minutes before the woman put me on hold and handed me over to someone who asked "What time?" I said, in English, "3:20." I think this new woman repeated my entire taxi request back to me, so I just kept saying "hai hai hai", or yes yes yes. Once the taxi arrived, the taxi driver spoke to me in Japanese during the entire ten minute ride to my classroom. I occasionally said, "hai" when I heard a word I knew like English, English school, or teacher. I don't know what he was saying or asking about these things, but I agreed.

It hasn't been all work in the past few weeks. Last Sunday, we went to a New Year's celebration at the Civic Center. We pounded mochi (rice cakes) with a giant mallet that was too heavy for me to lift on my own. Luckily, a strong man was nearby and helped me lift it up and down. Pounding the mochi gave us good luck for the New Year and we got a delicious treat. It was very yummy, but we couldn't eat too much, because we'd had a larger than expected lunch. For the second time, I ordered ramen as my meal and somehow ended up with two bowls of it. We've decided that anytime I want ramen, Dustin's going to have to eat it, too. He's eaten the second bowl and whatever he ordered these first two times, but from now on, we'll just be ordering the one bowl of ramen we think we've been ordering all along and see if we get the two we usually receive.

I have officially experienced my first earthquake. I almost missed it, too. Dustin and I were sitting on our futons, doing something or another on our computers when the floor started rumbling. I leapt up and stood in the doorframe while Dustin ran to the sliding glass door and opened it! I yelled at him to get away from the window and he laughed at me. It was such a small earthquake and lasted for less than 10 seconds, but I erred on the side of caution and Dustin found that ridiculous.

There's a conbini near the Nagaoka train station called Save On (its name makes me think of a frugal hippy) that Dustin and I frequent quite often. Sometimes you need to grab a warm drink, a little lunch, or an onigiri (rice ball) to hold you over on your way to school. We go in at least twice a week. When we first arrived in Nagaoka, a little old woman who works at Save On slipped some free juice in our bag with a wink. A few nights ago, Dustin needed a chicken snack, so we stopped in at Save On. The same little old woman came up behind us and shoved a bag stuffed with baked goods that expired the next day into Dustin's hands. We tried to say "Arigato," but she put her finger to her lips and shushed us. We walked out of Save On giggling while we surveyed our loot. Sometimes it's good to be a foreigner in Japan.

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

2009-01-03T21:47:00.005+09:00

or Happy New Year! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, "Happy New Year week," because it still feels like January 1 here in Japan. The New Year celebration has been going on and on and on. After having stayed in the warm apartment to avoid having to brave the hail and/or snow for the few days before New Year's Eve, we got a bit too excited about having a reason to leave the apartment and started celebrating at 6:00 p.m. We went back to visit the little okaachan and ojichan izakaiya we'd enjoyed so much before for some tasty traditional Japanese food and Niigata sake. The cute little old couple were closing up shop a little early, since New Years is a family holiday in Japan. We moved on to a much less interesting izakaiya, but by 9:00 we were bored by Nagaoka's "nightlife." We decided to ring in the New Year with some strawberry champagne, which proved more difficult to pop open than one would expect (see the And so This is Christmas... photo album).

On January 2, the New Year celebration continued with some great Japanese music. We saw some Shinto music performed. The most interesting instrument was a mouth organ unlike our simple harmonica. It literally looked like a miniature organ held up to his mouth. Here's a video of that music (Please forgive my terrible videography.):

After that group performed, a very different music and dance group went on stage. They played the type of music you would hear at a festival. One of the men danced around stage formally before dressing himself in a dragon costume. After the dance was finished, he walked around the audience snapping at the children while the kids' parents took pictures of their sometimes scared young ones. Here's a video of the second musical group (Please forgive the shoulder of the man sitting in front of me.):

When the music stopped, we stepped outside only to hear... more music. We walked down Ote Street, a normally quiet street (depsite being Nagaoka's "main street"), and found it filled with the sounds of taiko drums. There was a troupe of taiko drummers playing ginormous drums in front of the old lady department store in tiny little shorts while the snow fell around us. Most of them were getting a workout banging their sticks against the sides of the drums, but I felt pretty bad for the cymbal player. We spent the rest of the day doing some belated shopping and successfully avoiding the temptation to buy one of the many surprise bags the stores were offering. They were so tempting, sitting there just being huge and mysterious. Of course, they were in fact filled with all of the crap the stores haven't been able to sell in the past year, but there was that slim chance that something worth more than the $50 they were charging could be inside that giant bag. Alas, we walked home with lots and lots of presents for others, but no surprise bag. Whew.

Today was my favorite day of New Year's celebrating. My Japanese friend and coworker invited Dustin and me to join her and her daughter in some New Year activities. First, we went to the shrine to get our yearly blessing. It was about an hour drive to get to the shrine's parking lot and another five minutes driving around the parking lot looking for a spot, but we spent about three minutes total in the shrine, including the line we waited in for Dustin to ring the bell to call for our blessings from the priest. From there, we stopped for a lovely little meal at a nice Italian restaurant before making it to snow country. Once we got closer to the mountains, the sides of the roads were piled high with snow the bulldozer had pushed off the road. At one point, I looked out my window and saw nothing but snow right in front of my face. Winding around the mountains was a bit scary at first, but I put it out of my mind and trusted Yumi's years of experience on these icy roads. We made it there and back alive, so my trust was justified.

Eventually, we reached the onsen (hot springs)! Japanese hot springs are usually by the mountains. This one was right across the street from a ski resort, so lots of people using the onsen came right off the slopes. When you go to onsen, you enter the locker room, take off your clothes, and go into the onsen in your birthday suit. Before today, I was a bit nervous about the nakedness of an onsen experience, but I talked myself into it and was ready to go right into that locker room, strip down, and spend an hour taking a bath with dozens of people I don't know, a teenager I'd known for a few hours, and a coworker I'd know for a few months who I wouldn't see naked in most circumstances. Much to my surprise, my Japanese friend informed me I'd be onsening solo, because she was too nervous to go in with me. I was shocked to find out that a Japanese woman, used to many naked trips to the onsen was more scared than an American woman, conditioned from childhood to think of nakedness as private. I went in alone, spent some time in the hot water, endured stares from Japanese children who may never have seen a foreigner (much less a naked one), and left refreshed and with a bit more audacity. Our night ended at Yumi's house with some customary Japanese New Year food. In Japan, the woman of the house spends all day on December 31st cooking food for the first week of the year, so she can start the year off with a rest. We had our second huge meal of the day, this time full of osechi-ryori. We had sweetened black beans for our health, sweet potatoes with chestnuts for making money, and ozoni soup with mochi, a food once eaten by the samurai to give them energy for battle. It was a lovely end to a lovely day and a wonderful beginning to what will certainly be a wonderful year.

Christmas Japanese Style

2008-12-26T20:39:00.007+09:00

It was a very Japanese Christmas here in the Asby-Sitterson household. We started out the festivities on Christmas Eve by consuming what we later found out was a typical dinner for the night before Christmas: pizza. We also had a Christmas cake. It wasn't your typical fruitcake recycled from last year's pile of unwanted gifts. The Japanese make cute little cakes with Christmas decorations and loads of icing and charge you $30 to share it with your sweetie. Luckily, we waited until the last minute to buy one for ourselves and got a cheap one half-off at the grocery store minus all of the frills and extra icing. It was still a tasty end to our traditional Japanese Christmas Eve feast. One of my Japanese coworkers was surprised to hear that Americans don't have these cakes on Christmas Eve. When I explained that pumpkin or pecan pie was more common, she looked confused and said, "Your culture is so different." Yes, it is indeed often different than the Japanized version so popular here.

Our evening continued with some Christmas Carol Karaoke. The plan was to sing only Christmas songs all night long to ring in the holiday, but we eventually ran out of Christmas themed tunes and had to throw in a few cheesy non-Christmas songs. We started out the night strong with Mariah Carey's classic "All I Want for Christmas is You." A bunch of uber-Christmasy songs such as "Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland," and "Silent Night" followed. We then introduced Dustin to some Christmas tunes new to him. He pointed out that "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid is quite a downer on such a joyous occasion. "Last Christmas" by WHAM! and "Little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys and "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon made appearances on the playlist. The funniest moment of our blessed Christmas Eve singing came when the version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" that we chose turned out to be a rendition by City High. Imagine this church hymn sprinkled with "Baby" and "City High up in here!" Quite humorous.

Dustin instructed me to let him sleep until 11:00 on Christmas morning, so the coffee was waiting at 11:01. We opened the gifts that we miraculously kept unopened for about a month; they lived under our tiny tree in the Christmas corner, constantly tempting us. As per Christmas tradition, we made our presents useful immediately. Dustin spent most of the day playing his new Wii game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed while I read David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice and flipped through Lonely Planet Japan. I was highly disappointed (though not surprised) to discover that Nagaoka wasn't mentioned in the 868 page book even once. What was said about our rural prefecture, Niigata, failed to surprise as well. The famous rice and sake was mentioned beside the ski resorts and onsen. I had long since come to terms with the fact that I live in the boonies, but I hoped, for a brief second, that once I got my hands on the extensive Lonely Planet Japan guidebook, certainly something I hadn't yet discovered would be brought to my attention. Luckily, the rest of Japan is just a short train ride away. And all of the staples of Japan can be found in our tiny little town.

Once dinnertime rolled around, we pulled ourselves from our new toys and headed out on an adventure to partake in another traditional holiday meal in Japan. The Japanese eat a hearty meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas night. We hoped that we'd be able to squeeze our way into our local KFC for a nice meal. When we walked out the door dressed warmly (It was 3° C!), we were assaulted by big drops of rain. We opened our umbrellas and set out on our mission to meet The Colonel. About two minutes into our journey, the rain turned into little pellets of hail. Yes, folks. We braved a hail storm just to get some fried chicken and corn. Eventually, we made it. Turns out, the Japanese order buckets of chicken for Christmas in advance; they just come in, pick it up, and eat it at home with their families. Most of these people drove up in their cars, scampered in to retrieve one of the bags lining the counters and open table-tops, and returned to their warm houses by car. Since we arrived on foot, we decided to dine in. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves. Dustin had a chicken sandwich, whose name included both teriyaki and fire, some fries, and a biscuit with maple syrup. I had some cold corn and furi furi potato. Furi furi potato are basically french fries in a take out bag with your choice of flavor packets. You dump in your packet of flavor, shake, and enjoy. I chose yakisoba flavor, which is a type of Japanese noodle dish. It was the second oddest holiday meal I've had yet. (The oddest being the Christmas Eve dinner I shared with my dad and sister at Hooters on the year that my mom had to work the graveyard shift. Not much was open on that Christmas Eve in North Kansas City...)

Our Christmas ended in the wee hours of the morning. After KFC, we braved what had turned into a snow storm to get to 7-11 to call Dustin's family, who hadn't heard from us in a while. I had my new gloves to keep my hands warm and my rainboots to keep my feet dry, but it was the coldest phone call I've ever made. We got smart once the phone card we had ran out and hurried back home to make the remainder of our calls on Skype in the comfort of our own home. Speaking of Skype... It's a free and easy way to "talk on the phone" via your computer. All we have to do is set up a time when we'll both be at our computers and it's like I'm within reach, only 15 hours in the future. What I'm saying is, call me please, but let me know when, so I can answer. Just a reminder, my Skype name is danasitterson. We still have about $8 of Skype credit, so if you don't have the internet, you might be able to bribe me to call you on an actual phone for a rather short conversation.

From now on, we'll be putting links to full photo albums on the blog. You may have noticed a new addition to the sidebar directly to your right called "Captured on Film." Currently, you'll see the names of five different albums. Clicking each link will take you straight to the albums of photos I post on facebook, so all of you who have decided not to waste time on facebook can see the pictures without having to sign up for your own account. Enjoy!

I'll get back to you next year. Have fun during the rest of '08.

Reflections

2008-12-21T23:31:00.003+09:00

As the year comes to a close, I've been hearing and reading various people's hope that 2009 will be a year much better than 2008. Undoubtedly, it has been a rocky year in the economic sense; however, I can't help but feel that 2008 has been such an extraordinary year as well. For the first time since I've been a voting citizen, our country has decided to elect someone who has a plan to right so many of the wrongs that have happened in recent years. And personally, it's been such an exciting year! I started off this year jumping into the job market and was so blessed to have experience working with fabulous teachers that I greatly admire before having my very own classroom, brief though it was. My engagement was a very happy surprise in May. Now, I am here in Japan taking advantage of this wonderful job opportunity.

When I first arrived in Japan, adapting was more difficult than I anticipated. Adjusting to the decreased working hours and increased Dustin hours was surprisingly trying at first. If you ever question whether or not your current mate is "the one," try moving to a foreign country, living in a 10 x 12 room, and starting a new job that you share with that person. I can happily say that we've made it through the bad times and are on to the good times. Obviously, I don't expect smooth sailing for the rest of our life together, but I know that we'll be able to handle what comes our way. I can now say that I'm enjoying Japan and life here is much less difficult than I initially found it.

I've only been here for three months, but it's been a period of great growth. I started out the year working during most of my waking time. I came home exhausted each evening and never found enough time for myself. I didn't have time to develop any interests much less pursue them. Now that I have all the time in the world, I've discovered interests I didn't even know I had. Besides the occasional holiday-related festival or performance, Nagaoka doesn't offer much in the cultural sense. Alas, I've been expanding my world through the internet's many wonders. I've found time and again that I don't appreciate all of the things America has to offer until I've left it. Don't get me wrong, I love singing my heart out at karaoke, I appreciate the cute little mascots that adorn every sign and building that I see, I eat my fair share of sushi, and I recently wasted $15 and 20 minutes at the pachinko parlor. I engage in Japanese culture on a daily basis, but I've been discovering and/or reconnecting with so many great things that aren't particularly Japanese. These are the things that currently fill my free time (It's a long list, because I have so very much of it.):

1. podcasts (This American Life, The Hidden Universe, All Songs Considered, New Yorker Fiction)

2. bicycle riding (out of necessity daily and for pleasure occasionally)

3. news (The Daily Beast website, Anderson Cooper, BBC)

4. reading (fiction, non-fiction, blogs, magazines)

5. movies/ T.V. (The Daily Show, Mad Men, Twin Peaks)

6. writing (right here, in my journal, in letters)

7. photography (taking, posing in, viewing)

8. yoga and meditating

9. video games (Wii, DS, at the arcade)

10. studying Japanese (slowly and not so devotedly)

I like our life here in Japan. Our jobs are so easy and usually fun. We live quite comfortably while being able to pay back school loans easily. There's at least one surprise in nearly every day. Today's surprise: baking brownies in a toaster oven. They had to be stirred every 30 seconds and still turned out a bit burned on the top, but they were done in half the time! Interacting with Japanese people is often full of hilarity. When I first got to Japan, I had very little success with chopsticks. Despite this fact, I was told by three different women (all strangers) on three different occasions that I was "very good with chopsticks." My last such encounter happened with a cute little old lady who waited to accost me with this compliment until Dustin had left the table to use the restroom. While he was gone, she interrogated me in Japanese and I repeated "eggo" or "English" over and over. She kept holding up 3 fingers, so I said that I had been in Japan for nearly 3 months, wondering how she would have known this. She quickly said goodbye and left the table when she spied Dustin approaching. And if you haven't guessed by now, I'm quite enjoying all of this free time.

2008 has been a great year and I know that 2009 will be even better!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

2008-12-07T12:15:00.016+09:00

Japan just doesn't want to believe the fact that winter does not officially begin until December 21. I tried to convince my students that it was in fact still technically Fall, but they refused to concede defeat. After yesterday's erratic weather (which included torrential rain, sunny skies, hail, and the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen, all within twelve hours' time), I started to question whether or not to join the "Winter is now." camp. Admittedly, the snow-covered rooftops add a bit of holiday atmosphere that was previously missing; however, trudging through the streets bundled in countless layers of clothing while trying to pull my boots out of heaps of slushy half-melted snow mounds did not particularly bring to mind sleigh bells, glistening snow, or doing anything the Eskimo way. Once I blasted Christmas tunes through my headphones, I did feel slightly merrier, but I'm still missing the bike-worthy weather.

November passed by oh so quickly. I'm getting adjusted to my classes. I have many more junior high school classes than I anticipated or desired. I don't think I've been called to work with the preteen to teenager demographic. I'm too fragile and sensitive. I can't handle the rude comments and ugly portraits directed towards me. Luckily, I only have one school full of junior high students. The rest of the month, I teach younger kids with only a sprinkling of teenagers through out.

We FINALLY got cellphones and paychecks. Both have greatly improved our social lives. Now we can actually be informed when a happening occurs. In Japan, some people text, but most people use phone e-mail. That means, you can send me an e-mail from your computer and I can receive it basically as a text. My phone e-mail is dsitterson@i.softbank.jp.

Dustin's already adorned his phone with quite a few dingly-danglies. My phone doesn't have a designated place to hang the oh-so-popular phone jewelry, so, I'm not as cool. I did feel like a rockstar at the Softbank store while we were signing up for phone service. While we were waiting for something or another, we were served piping hot green tea. After we paid for the phones, our arms were filled with "gifts." Most of them were Softbank promotional items like a box of tissue, a roll of toilet paper reminding us of our phone plans' benefits, Softbank folders, Softbank pens, Softbank sticky notes, and (my favorite) a Softbank plush dog mascot phone jewelry that spouts off Softbank ads when you press his tummy. I hooked him onto my bike and he now sounds very scary after spending a few nights outside in the rain. Some random things were included in our prize bags, like a notebook wearing a tiny hooded sweatshirt and a plethora of coupons to some unknown eatery. It was quite a loot.

We took part in a Thanksgiving potluck with some of our fellow Nagaokan-Americans. It was quite a spread. I was sadly disappointed in the sweet potato dish I've made so many times in America with success. Apparently, toaster ovens just don't do the same job as a large oven. Everyone else made some wonderful food. Tonight is an Italian-themed potluck! Hopefully, my toaster oven can handle garlic bread. Dustin's dad and stepmom sent him a lovely birthday package with some of your staple Thanksgiving food that we'd missed during the potluck, so we got to have a second Thanksgiving meal (Thank you!!!). Thanksgiving also happened to be Dustin's birthday this year. We both worked on Thursday, so we postponed his celebration to Sunday.

On Sunday, we travelled to the big city of Niigata to celebrate Dustin's 26th. A few new friends joined us for lovely Indian food and Round 1, a place that very well may have been made specifically with Dustin in mind. It's a huge 5 story building. Inside, there is karaoke, bowling, batting cages, skating rinks, a "relax lounge" filled with row after row of massage chairs and manga, basketball, tennis, ball pits, a mechanical bull, countless UFO games (crane games for you non-Japanese), more medals games than I've ever seen, and of course, VIDEO GAMES!

"What are medals games?" you ask. In America, these are the quarter games where a mechanical platforms moves back and forth pushing quarters towards the edge as you drop in your own quarters hoping to gain more than you put in. In Japan, you pay for medals that aren't worth anything. You feed these in the machine endlessly hoping to win more medals that you can't turn back in for the money you originally paid for them. Instead, you just rack up more medals credits at this particular institution and you can play with more medals the next time you come in. It's like gambling without any possibility of winning. Basically, it's a way to kill an hour for $5. We got some free medals with the 3 hour block of play time we bought and I must admit, that it was indeed entertaining to play medals. I may even pay for an hour of medals entertainment some boring day.

I had a blast at Round 1. Dustin had such fun that he's back there as I type, only one week after our first visit. I was surprised by the amount of cooperative video games. There were so many where you and a partner had to work together to win. I also enjoyed a game where you killed the bad guys by typing their names on a computer keyboard. I had fun and practiced numbers in Japanese by beating up on a big sumo guy. I played video games for a good hour, before needing a karaoke break. Jessica, our newest Nagaokan, joined me in a round of Christmas karaoke. I lost track of time in the karaoke room. The massage chair and the Christmas tunes were intoxicating. The realization that our 3 hours of play had finished dashed my hopes of partaking in any of the sports related fun at Round 1. I vow to play some sports when we visit again during our holiday vacation.

Dustin and I tried our luck at the UFO games and went home 1600 yen poorer for it. Our friend Scott won seven separate items from the UFO games, so we thought we could do it, too. Scott gave me a great tip. If you call the UFO attendant over and point to the item you want, he will make it easier for you to get it AND he'll show you how to do it. Still, somehow, we couldn't free that cute little hamster dressed up like a cow from his glass cage. Scott has had over a year of practice at this, so maybe in time, I will be able to win useless stuffed animals from UFO machines. I know it's possible, because I saw many little Japanese teens leaving with bags overflowing with stuffed prizes.

*UPDATE: Dustin just walked through the door, back from his second venture to Round 1, carrying the coveted hamster/cow AND a melon dog. He has learned the ways of the UFO.

We did leave with plenty of purikura. I heart purikura. To obtain a bit of purikura, you first go into a completely green photo booth. You choose a back ground, use the monitor to set yourself up to be perfectly positioned within the background, and do a silly pose. This continues for 5 or 6 backgrounds. After you're posed out, you head into the editing booth where you can use a photoshop-like program to glam up your pictures. You can add pre-made icons, phrases, and filters OR you can use the pencil to do just about anything to your photo. Usually, you only have about four minutes to edit and then choose your favorites, but our editing booth got stuck on 39 seconds, so we had all the time in the world to perfect our purikura. Here's some purikura Dustin and I did a while back that now decorates my phone and the beauties from last weekend.

Thank you to everyone trying their hardest to keep in touch. I love hearing from you all even if it's a short little paragraph once in a great while. I've got lots of letters fully written and waiting for stamps. Hopefully, I'll have some in my mailbox soon, too! *hint hint hint*

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Superheroes and Presidents

2008-11-08T10:14:00.008+09:00

Quite often, when I meet a new class, they ask where I'm from. Usually they do this by randomly calling out the names of a few English-speaking countries, so that I prompt them to ask, "Where are you from?" Yesterday, when I replied, "I'm from America," all of the boys in the class immediately began singing, "La la la la O-ba-ma. La la la la O-ba-ma. La la la la la la la la O-ba-ma. Obama is beautiful world." I might have been confused had my good friend Katie not alerted me to the town in Japan called Obama, which the Japanese have used to support our new president in an undeniably Japanese way. Here is the music video for Any Brother's Band's "Obama is Beautiful World." Quite nice.

I recently set up my Japanese bank account. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't learned nearly enough Japanese to accomplish this task on my own, so I went to the International Affairs Center at the Civic Center where there are loads of helpful people who speak English and Japanese. They called the bank and warned them that a blonde girl who won't understand them was coming. I was armed with a post-it note that I was told said (in Japanese), "I want to open a bank account." It was a strange moment. I felt like a small child completing a task she didn't really understand. The people at the bank were kind and patient, especially when it came to putting the sounds of my name into Japanese characters. My bank card reads "Dahna Shitersen," but it'll do. My bank has a superhero mascot, Mighty Atom. I even got a cute little packet of tissues to carry around to remind me that my money is being protected by a small child wearing only underwear and rocket boots.

Welcome to Nagaoka

2008-10-31T14:38:00.004+09:00

The past two and a half weeks have whizzed by. We spent the first week wandering around aimlessly, trying to find somewhere within our two apartments to shove all of our junk (Thus far, we've been unsuccessful.), attending a regional training seminar where we met all of our coworkers (whom we haven't seen since that first weekend), and catching up on sleep we were denied in training.

Since then, I've spent one week at my school in Niigata and one week at my school in Nishitsubame. I love my Niigata school. My classes were enthusiastic and attentive and actually learned a smidgen of English. My school at Nishitsubame is a different story. The 45 minute walk to the school on the edge of a busy road with no sidewalk (which has been in the rain each time) dampens my mood from the beginning, but all of my classes so far at this school has contained at least one child that is arguably difficult. In my class of two year-olds, I have three that love to climb on the tables and jump off. So far, I've already had one injury at this school and it's only my first week there! I take comfort in knowing that I only have to see these crazy kids once a month for an hour.

We just recently got ONE bike between the two of us, so we haven't been able to do as much exploring as we'd like to, but our goal for this weekend is to find a second. I must say that I'm impressed with the standard Japanese bicycle. Most of them come with a nice front basket, a back rack, a guard over the back wheel (so your pant leg doesn't get stuck inside of it), the most ingenious lock that is permanently installed surreptitiously around the back wheel, a front headlight that's powered by your pedalling, and a very lightweight frame. Plus, it's a beauty. I love this bike!

Nagaoka is okay. As I said, we haven't seen a lot. We've been to what I call Kappa Sushi, because I don't know how to read its true name and it has a picture of a Kappa (cucumber loving swamp creature) on the sign outside its building. It's a kaiten sushi restaurant, which means the sushi comes to you via a conveyor belt. Or you can order a specific dish from a little computer and it comes to you on a little Shinkansen. I love it.

We also visited a very local izekaiya. The outside of this establishment is a crowded mess of tree stumps and furs and Japanese lanterns. The inside is filled with even more junk. There were Noh masks on the walls, bottles of sake shaped like animals, taxidermied blowfish covered in spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling, and a huge bear skin right above my head. We weren't sure it was an izekaiya at first, because we walked in to find an old man laying on tatami mats watching the news and an old woman in a dark room bent over a writing table. Dustin timidly said, "Izekaiya?" The old woman emerged from the darkness and said, "Hai," so we came in to the crowded room devoid of people and took a seat. She served us glasses of sake we assumed were water, because they were served in drinking glasses filled to the brim. Then she preceded to served us various dishes she cooked up in the little kitchen area 6 feet away. We had a surprisingly fabulous meal of daikon with spicy mustard, salted popcorn, edible flowers with soy sauce, and savory mochi (Mochi is like a huge bowl of rice packed down into a deck of cards). We spent the time during our meal trying to communicate with them and occassionally succeeding. They called each other Otosan and Okaasan, Father and Mother, and implored us to do the same. It's the cooleset place in Nagaoka and I don't think it even has a name.

It's been a while

2008-10-14T10:03:00.010+09:00

Hi guys, sorry its been so long since I've talked to any of you. When we landed in Japan I found out that Helio was completely wrong about my phone working in Japan. It's not even the right technology. So now I have to pay for a brick until January. We've had internet access in our hotel, but its the same room as the lobby/cafeteria/front desk, so not the best place to use Skype.

Before I forget to mention it, we don't know how long it will be until we can get online again. We should be online by November, but it could take until December. I'm fairly confident we can find somewhere with free wi-fi or if nothing else an internet café, but either way it will be a temporary or emergency solution.

I suppose I'll tell you about our trip so far. First we stayed in a smallish neighbourhood on the outskirts of Nagoya, called Hongō. In Japan what could be called a neighbourhood is named after the closest train station. This custom makes the trains both easy to find and convenient to use.

The toilet was perhaps the first surprise I discovered. I had heared about Japanese toilets before, but it is truely something that has to be experienced to be understood. Without going into too much detail I will try to convey the event.

First the positive side. The seat was prewarmed. They also save a lot of water. One way is that the flush handle can be turned one direction for #1 and another direction for #2. The other smart feature, and I really like this one, is that the tank has a sink atop it. So, when you flush, clean water comes out a faucet which runs straight into the tank. This is especially smart because the toilet is a separate room from the washroom/laundry room.

And the dreaded negative. There's really only one, and I knew what it was, but I had to try it anyway. Japanese toilets include a bidet. While startling, it was pretty much what I expected. The true problem came when trying to turn it off. Our toilet in particular had 12 buttons. Several seemed to be for adjusting some sort of settings, so they were obviously not "Off." In my haste, I didn't realize the button I thought might have been "Off" actually said "Move." I'll let your imagination work that one out. Luckily my next attempt proved successful. Before leaving the subject once and for all I also want to point out the drastic difference between a personal and public toilet. Please note the pictures below.

Saturday morning we found out how expensive internet cafés are. Dana emailed her parents and I emailed the guy whose place I'm taking. That cost about $7. On the plus side we're getting a sofa, lounge chair, two tables, two lamps, clothes racks, a Japanese PS2, 17" computer monitor, computer speakers, and various kitchen supplies from the guy for about $140.

After that we both tried our first Japanese curry. I really recommend that you try it if you ever have the opportunity. There are tens of thousands of possible combinations. My okra, tofu, and spinach combo was quite good. Later we discovered the ¥99 store. You'd be surprised what you can find in Japan for about a dollar.

On Sunday, we packed as much of Nagoya into one day as we could. We started at Jingu Nishi where we spent a number of hours in a traditional Japanese garden. The Shirotori Garden has a vast sinuating pond fed by a stream which includes several, perhaps five, waist-high waterfalls. I saw at least a hundred koi in the pond and there were undoubtedly more than that elsewhere. They were also the largest and most vibrantly coloured carp I have ever seen. Some really look like they were painted.

Obviously the landscapes were great to look at, but it was also unexpectedly great to listen to. The garden was a quiet break inside a busy city. I think that having a large park and some museams surrounding the garden created a buffer from the urban noise. The coolest thing I experienced all day was called a suikinkutsu. It's basically a spring overflowing into a bell buried underground which you listen to with a long bamboo stick pointed at a hole in the ground. This suikinkutsu had three chambers each flowing into the next. Each chamber had a different sized bell and pit, and so made different sounds. Follow this link to wikipedia to hear a recording of a suikinkutsu.

After the garden we went to the Osu Kannon Temple. Kannon is the bodhisattva of compassion in Buddhism. Two days every month there is a bazaar in the main open areas of the temple complex and we happened to go on one of those days. So, while the place was really big, it was pretty packed. We then went to the nearby shinto shrine called Wakamiya-Hachiman. It was interesting to see the vast difference between a touristy religious site and a neighbourhood one. Here are some photos from the temple.

At the temple a Buddhist would toss a coin into a slotted box, swing a rope to hit a gong, close his eyes, and clap his hands in prayer. He can also purchase and burn incense or buy a random blessing, read it, then tie it to a tree branch in the temple. Besides washing his hands and mouth before entering and tossing a coin into one of the many slotted offering boxes I'm not sure what a Shintoist actually does at a shrine. The few people we saw there were just strolling through it as if it were a park. Here are some shots of the shrine.

As Dana said we went to Parco next. There's not a lot to say about it though. It's expesive to be trendy in Japan. Luckily depaato always have a cheap shop on the basement floor which we didn't take too long to find. Since then it's just been training, training, training. We've had two weekends of freetime. Last weekend consisted of izakaya, karaoke, and sleeping. This one of karaoke, sleeping, and moving. Aparently the hardest part is over now. For the most part the kids are sweet and I think Nagaoka is going to be fun.

I'll have plenty more to talk about later.

Konnichiwa

2008-10-07T08:53:00.010+09:00

We've been in Japan for a little over a week now, and we've already seen so much! We spent the first few days in Nagoya, the third largest city in Japan. We had a few days to unwind and de-jet lag. There's quite a bit to see in Nagoya, but we only had a short time to do it, so we picked a few sights to see. My favorite was the Shirotori Gardens, a Japanese stroll garden with a lovely pond full of carp. The best part of the day was spent sitting at the steps leading to the pond watching the carp glide over each other to get to the food pellets we'd throw into the water.

There are a plethora of shrines and temples in Japan and Nagoya itself, so we picked one of each to see. The craziest part of the day was spent in PARCO, a depaato ("department store"). This is a three building mega-mall. Needless to say, it was overwhelming. One unexpected sight we saw was a massive protest. There was a horde of people taking up an entire lane of traffic, holding signs and chanting, "We want pure love." A Japanese news reporter and her cameraman approached us as we were gazing at the crowd. Apparently, they asked us what we thought of pure love. Since we didn't know what pure love is, and she couldn't tell us in English, we couldn't answer. We've asked around, but no one seems to know what this movement is all about.

We've been in Takasaki since last Tuesday night. It's not as big as Nagoya, but we've managed to have a bit of fun. We went to our first izakaya, the traditional Japanese bar and tapas-like restaurant. We also tried karaoke with a few of the other trainees. Last night, we found a genuine noodle shop full of locals. Though there wasn't a word of English or a picture of the food (which I normally rely on) in the building, we managed to convey our orders and had a wonderful meal. I've been struggling to find vegetarian food since just about everything in Japan has beef extract if not meat itself in it. It was nice to have some authentic Japanese food that was truly vegetarian.

We also had the chance to go to Isesaki, Springfield's Sister City. We spent Saturday in training there since our trainer, Yukiko, has lived there for eight years and Peppy Kids Club has a classroom there. It's a nice little city. We tried to find similarities between it and Springfield, but the closest we came was comparing the industrial side of the town to JQH Tower and the surrounding buildings near downtown. The best parts of Isesaki in my opinion were the Indian restaurant Yukiko took us to and the construction barriers in the shape of frogs.

Training has been intense. They're throwing a vast amount of information at us in a series of long days. Before our days off on Sunday and Monday, we'd had pretty much zero free time. Our first day of teaching was Friday. We each taught one class. Dustin had a rough class, but my group was pretty good. My hope that Japanese children would be better behaved was dashed. They're pretty genki (wild, rambunctious, ect.). We have three more teaching days and two more training days until training is over. I've been told that life gets easier once you're through with training. I can't wait!

We're Leaving on a Jet Plane!

2008-09-24T08:09:00.002+09:00

We have just one more complete day left in the states. We leave on Thursday and have sixteen hours of traveling plus the thirteen hour time difference. That makes for more than a full day of our lives crammed into tiny little plane seats.

We'll probably be training in Nagoya, but we could find out on day two that we'll be rushed off to Osaka for our two weeks of training. Apparently, our apartments in Nagaoka aren't going to be ready for us in a timely manner, so we'll be in our training city for an extra week. We're told we could be doing any number of odd office jobs or acting as substitutes for that week. Then again, the literature we've received from Peppy Kids says that they could change all of our plans once we get there. Unless those changes include finding couple housing for us, we're hoping things go according to the original plan.

Everything is suddenly beginning to feel very real. I think the first few days in Japan will be full of quiet moments as I haven't learned a whole lot of Japanese. This last month, which was supposed to be full of intense study sessions, has slipped away from me and I find myself with very little knowledge of the Japanese language. I'm putting my faith in my past experience that learning the language comes easy to me when I'm inundated with it all day long for many many many days on end. I am going to attempt to exercise self-control around Dustin and practice Japanese with him whenever we're conversing (once I've gained the ability to converse that is). The fact that I'll be teaching English will make it hard to avoid my native tongue all the time.

Starting Thursday, you can text Dustin on his phone, but he won't be able to receive calls and I will be phoneless. We don't really know when we'll have internet access, but once we're settled we'll try to keep Skype active whenever we're home, so we can receive "calls" that way. Be mindful of the 14 hour time difference from Missouri and let us know if you'd like to coordinate a specific time to call, so we can free up our schedules and sit anxiously by the computer!

How to use Skype

2008-09-19T13:13:00.000+09:00

Click here to download Skype for free.

Install following the on-screen instructions.

Once Skype is opened add us by clicking "Add a Contact," which looks like +. Then search for one of us. When the name comes up click it, then click "Add contact."

To make a call just double click a name, or click the name then click the big green phone button.
To end a call click the big red phone button.
To start your video camera click the blue button with the video camera silhouette.