Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Happy Holidays... and Regular Days

Wow... time flies. Where has it gone? It seems like only a few weeks ago I was spending my first days in Tokyo, completely overwhelmed and feeling akin to children on Christmas Day.

My negligence is hardly excusable - though I have been busy, I find myself too tired at the end of the day to muster up any sort of intelligent blog chatter. Not to mention the rapid deterioration of my English, as I constantly replace appropriate words with those understood in this culture, i.e. "difficult" for "hard", "correct" for "right" or "finished" instead of "done". Perhaps, my spoken English tends to be rather candid and plain, but I have spent all too much time pondering the nuances of language and communication. My sarcasm initiates confused looks on fellow teachers and students, even those teachers who are strong in English. Even things like "and stuff", though I would not dare use it in the written word, leaves so much for conversation, whereas here... even that draws a "I'm confused" response. So when you speak to me in person, do not be surprised to hear me speaking slowly, dumbing down words in a sentence as I speak, and repeating myself multiple times. Its just the nature of the beast, or some such catchphrase as that.

Shall I start with Thanksgiving? Clearly, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Japan - though Japan has so many holidays so it doesn't bother me at all (3 day weekends are excellent!). Considering I never do anything "holidayish" or "familyish" anyway, it didn't feel different than any other year. Well, I suppose to celebrate, or perhaps poke a bit of fun at it on my part, my fellow Fukuroi ALT and I headed to KFC for a fried chicken dinner, coleslaw, etc. That wasn't quite enough so we ended up going to eat at another place not too long after. Oh, I also bought an external hard drive that evening - Happy Thanksgiving to me. Oh yes, I forgot, I also made a pumpkin pie with David when I went to visit him a few weekends ago. Also should add I made the most delicious Banana bread in my toaster oven.

The weekend after I visited David, I went back to Tokyo with one of my friends for the weekend. Honestly, I could hardly think of Seattle as a city after spending time roaming the various areas of Tokyo. Some places we visited, if interested, were Ginza, Ikebukuro, Harajuku and Akihabara. Our first stop was Tokyo station, which we didn't get sucked into like at Kyoto. We then randomly found Ginza, unintentionally, as we were searching for pizza for lunch. It would just so happen that our hard efforts to find pizza for that meal, were ironically unnecessary the rest of the weekend as we found pizza shops everywhere after that. I also discovered a cool new feature on my phone, so if I type in "pizza" or "starbucks" or something on my GPS map, it shows me all the places I can go nearby. Spiffy.

It was somewhat homey wandering around Tokyo and seeing a Starbucks quite regularly. Or Tully's. Or another coffee shop. Really, it isn't just Seattle. The nice thing is that the Starbucks are open late in Tokyo, so we had a place to sit and chill out when we were tired of walking.

Back to the districts of Tokyo, or at least the 4 we went to. Ginza is one of those posh shopping districts. Burberry, Coach, Armani, Louis Vuitton, etc. Walking around for about 20 minutes made us realize we wouldn't be able to afford anything there, so pretty much promptly left.

Ikebukuro is where we stayed the night. We visited a popular place called "Sunshine City." Plenty of shopping, somewhat more affordable, but even Gap here is twice as expensive as Gap in the U.S. Various other attractions, a terrace, etc, but we went to a "food theme park." Not sure what you think of when you think food theme park, but basically the place is like a giant maze, outfitted like something I would imagine Disneyland would resemble... Really we kept commenting on how we felt like Alice in Wonderland or something. Basically though, the "food" part of it is a bunch of vendors that sell all different kinds of things. So naturally, I wanted to visit the ice cream part of it. Of course, I chose something that looked to be lemonade in the characters, "レモネ - remone". They handed me the cup with light blue ice cream. Uh, what? Blue lemonade? Well, I figured, I'm in Japan, not really abnormal. A taste left me wondering if it was some kind of fruity bubble gum flavor, but I think that was the color deceiving me. A look in the Japanese-English dictionary on my phone told me that it was actually a flavor derived from lemonade soda pop. Ah ok, non-carbonated lemonade soda pop, now I can see it...

When wandering back towards our hotel, we were walking, and as usual I end up getting in everyone's way. Someone on a bicycle was heading towards us, me oblivious as usual, as my friend calls out my name so I can move. Well I realize it, say "Oh crap!" and run to the side, except rather stupidly, IN FRONT of the bicyclist to the OTHER side of the sidewalk. Don't ask... I really to this day have no idea why I did that instead of just stepping back.

The following day we went to Harajuku, which is known for different things, but supposedly the youngsters dressed all punk and crazy that hang out there... However, it is also well known for the, again, shopping. The street, which these outrageously expensive shops line is beautiful, but too long. I don't know how the women in heels do it. I also thought to myself how people have the money to spend on these name brands in faltering economies around the globe, because yes, Japan is in a recession also, although from what I've heard, it hasn't really been out of one for sometime. Buying Coach and Burberry must be stimulating the economy - if anything.

Akihabara is known for electronics, which on any day that I am loaded with cash, would have been a real treat. However, I was so overstimulated I went into somewhat of a comatose state for me. Next time.

The treat of my weekend was a glorious Mt. Fuji on the train ride back. See left.

Christmas is almost here - I will be going to Tokyo for a few days to see David and his brother, then either hanging out on my lonesome in Fukuroi for a whole week or perhaps getting lost somewhere in Japan - depending on how much $ I have. I only have to take three days of paid leave but with that we have two weeks off. Oh, which to explain, Japan does not celebrate Christmas as a national holiday like many other countries do. Many people do celebrate it in some way though I suppose, considering there are Christmas items everywhere and they are relentlessly advertising their "Christmas cakes." Christmas cake is a tradition in Japan - though I don't know where it came from as I have yet to hear of people having Christmas cake anywhere else... at least on a large scale basis.

On the other hand, New Year's is of course, huge here. So, the whole second week of my break is primarily for that reason. And since they don't believe in debit cards here, I have to stock up on cash beforehand.

Before I leave you to another day, I just wanted to share some of those "Kids say the darndest things" moments, er, maybe in this case it would be "learners of English"... (and I'm sure I sound equally as amusing when I speak in Japanese to native Japanese people...). We just finished up our second term so the students had final exams. I absolutely loathe this time and grading exams. I seem to lack the focus and attention to detail, and end up making more mistakes than any competent educator should. However, one section of the test was a "How do you feel" dialogue. So, someone asks how they are, they say they feel bad or sick, then are asked what is wrong, and respond with whatever their ailment is or something similar. Well... a few responses for you, but just as a precursor, I am quite proud of their creativity and attempts to think outside of the box.

B: I am not good.
A: What's the matter?
B: I am a sick.
A: I will call your mother.


B: I have a sick.
A: What's it to you?
B: I am a fever.
A: You will be sad.


B: I am sleepy and tired.
A: What's wrong.
B: I studied English last night.



Yes, it certainly breaks up the monotony of grading 200+ tests.

Well folks, I must bid farewell for now... and I'll be getting a faulty crown replaced this saturday, so, I hope I survive.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!