Driving Update

I have now successfully driven to my second elementary school visit, to a hot spring near Dan, back to Dan’s house, to Megan’s house, and then to Amarume (a nearby village) to meet Tim, the Group C JET from New Zealand.  I’m happy to report that he’s a really chill guy with a really sweet, spacious three-story house (and I mean spacious in relation to my catbox of an apartment, but still—jealous!).  So that’s now four or five successful ventures out onto the left side of the road, and so far the only thing I’m screwing up is which side my blinkers are on and which side my windshield wipers are on; right and left respectively.  I’m frequently approaching a light, and out of force of habit, flicking my left hand down to make a left turn, only to find that my windshield wipers are dragging themselves across a dry surface.  Otherwise, though, I’ve pretty well surprised myself with how comfortable I am driving on the left.  It probably helps having the steering wheel on the right, as it’s always felt natural to be close to the dividing line on the road, and so my brain has adjusted accordingly.  Let’s hope I continue to be this careful!

また、ね！

Mata, ne!

I Love My Kids!!!

Wait now, nobody panic.  I haven’t gone and done anything silly; I’m merely referring to the kids I teach at school.  I didn’t get a chance to post about my first school visit to Yutagawa Elementary School on Friday, but as Naganuma (the farthest trip I’ll make all year, apparently) doesn’t need me until tomorrow afternoon, I’ve got some time to catch up a bit.

So Yutagawa was on Friday, and I’d heard it was quite a hike by bike, so I made sure to look up the directions on Alex’s internet connection (remember that time when I didn’t have internet?) before I left in the morning, and I got up extra early to allow an hour to get there, as it’s 20 minutes by car (10 km from my apartment, do the conversion to miles as you will).  Good thing, too, because in my attempt to outsmart the directions (I saw a shortcut I could take that would get me headed in the right direction faster than Google Maps’ route) I got totally turned around in Tsuruoka, and spent the first 40 minutes of said hour trying to get back in the right direction.  Finally, I found a sign pointing toward Yutagawa, but just to be sure I would end up on the 345 going in the right direction, I stopped at the Koban (police box) across the street.  

I became a soybean

At last!  At long last, my own internet!  Rejoice, for I have returned and can now update more regularly!  I think we’ll try to stick to the once-a-week on Saturday schedule I mentioned before, seeing as I’m updating on a Saturday to kick off the arrival of a modem I get to keep.

A lot has happened since I last updated, mainly in the form of some super cool gatherings in and around Tsuruoka.  Dan from Haguro invited a bunch of us out to his house (yes, he gets a whole house!) for a little housewarming party.  Block leader Corey combined this event with a birthday party for Virginia, and it was off to the races!  For reference, Dan’s house is owned by a Japanese man who once ran a shop out of it.  One room is off limits due to storage, but the place has a massive kitchen, sizeable tatami room (i.e. the traditional mats woven from straw), another big living room, a full bedroom (or possibly two), and as Corey put it, “rooms Dan hasn’t even found yet.”  As such, we have dubbed the place Haguro-jo (Haguro Castle), and suffice it to say we all had an awesome night, complete with a wicked good Irish music set courtesy of Scott, Corey, Virginia, Kaoru (an awesome Japanese fiddle player) and Pierre, who comes from France.

First, though, I want to share a photo of a little dish I made called “Let’s see if marinating chicken in some pineapple juice works.”  The answer is “not really,” but if you add slices of canned pineapple and some broccoli, and put it over rice, it can turn out okay.  So long as you match each bite of chicken with a bite of pineapple.  Without further delay:

Also, trying to caramelize the pineapples in their own juice kind of failed. Live and learn!

Hey Kids!

Today, finally, I got to go to my school, the Third Middle School of Tsuruoka, and meet the Prinicpal and Vice Principal.  Ishikawa-sensei came to back me up, which was handy, because the heads of the school speak a little bit faster than my brain works in Japanese at the moment.  Still, I was able to impress them by speaking Japanese (thank you, Meguro-sensei!), even if it`s still the initial “He said hello and strung a sentence together!  He`s great at Japanese!” phase.  We talked for a while about how hot it is in Japan (the soul-crushing humidity continues unabated, if you`re curious), where I studied Japanese, and how the Principal uses a lot of the Shonai dialect (which, from what I can gather, gets a bum rap for making you sound like a total country bumpkin).

No Internet? No Problem!

Hello all,

I`m not letting the lack of apartment internet keep me from sharing a quick note:  I`ve finally got a schedule!  Yes, believe it or not I did come here to actually WORK.  I`ll have to head in sometime before the end of this week to introduce myself to the teaching staff (and give out some New Jersey-born salt water taffy–woo!), and then I`ll officially start teaching next Monday, August 23, 2010; a date that shall go relatively unnoticed by history.  The following day, I have to attend a three-day orientation for all of Yamagata Prefecture.  So much for continuity!

As for the internet, my application will be faxed in on August 19, and from there it`ll take about two weeks for the modem to arrive.  Which is just as well, because my predecessor`s contract (not his internet service–go figure) is actually effective untill August 31.  The bottom line is that I should have apartment internet by September 1.

Hooray for actually earning money!  Stay tuned, and keep the comments coming!

また、ね！

Western Okonomiyaki?

After a couple days of horrendous stinging, burning and itching, I have finally entered my molting phase, and the sunburn is finally turning to cancer tan.  Friday night Gavin and I had an okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) making party over at his place.  We’ve both discovered that we love to cook as a hobby, and so we’ll be putting our heads together quite often this year to make deliciousness happen.  There are several things we want to try and either make from scratch and several things we want to learn to make with more skill, and we should probably make a list of said things, but going by the seat of your pants is so much more exciting, no?

Anyway, it was a PACKED. HOUSE.  The air conditioner (which is mounted near the ceiling—don’t ask) was on full blast, but it was no use; the apartment got too hot too fast with a ton of people AND the electric grill on which we were making the okonomiyaki.  For the uninitiated, okonomiyaki can look like this:

Japanese Pancakes! These particular 'cakes have squid in them, and the one on the right has a bit of cheese on it. Yum!

Feel the Burn!

Wrapping up this second week in Tsuruoka were a couple of really neat events.  Wednesday, courtesy of the lovely Mide and her surprisingly spacious vehicle (seriously, it looks like a tiny box but inside I had plenty of head clearance, which doesn’t even happen in the back seats of American cars) Megan, Dan, Alex and I scaled Mount Haguro, which is a decent drive and most likely a lovely bike out from Tsuruoka.  Mide picked us up around 5:30 and we headed out to the base of the mountain.  It’s a gorgeous drive past a lot of green fields and farms.

Verdant!

Post Rush!!!

So, as you can see, there’s a flood of new posts up here.  I’m back in business!  Well, for now.  My predecessor Oscar’s internet contract is still active until the 16th of August, so he recently lent me his modem to use until the time comes when his service expires (thanks man!).  Sooooo I have internet at home until the 16th, at which point my application for internet will go into effect, but there will be a roughly 2-week gap while they send me a modem.

Anyway, be sure to head all the way back to July 25 (should be on page two, working backwards) to get the full story on my journey to Japan for the second time, and be sure to watch this space for more updates.  よし！

じゃあ、ね！

大事にして！ (Daiji ni Shite; Treasure That!)

This is a phrase that means “Jeff, don’t put your personal seal, which is effectively your signature for everything in Japan, in the little skinny pocket above the front pocket of your jeans!”

I went to the Kokusai Mura to use the internet for a bit, and realized when I was done that I was without my little stamp.  This is a pretty big mess, as I need it for things like, oh, say, my internet contract.  Thankfully, this being Japan, it was right where I dropped it, on the corner of the street not too far back toward my place.  It had popped out of its case and rolled toward an area where some shrubs were planted.  Whew!  I now keep it in my room at all times, unless I know for sure that I’ll need it.

Ya-ma-Yo Yama Yo! Ya-ma-Yo Yama Yo!

With the weekend behind us, Alex and I ventured out for our first big supermarket run.  We biked out to the Kokusai Mura community center for some internet time, and then headed off to a nearby shopping center that is home to MaxValu, a 24-hour supermarket, Homac, a home goods store, Yamaya, a shop chock full of sake and a bunch of imported goods, and Doki Doki, a secondhand, or “recycle” shop.  While wandering the aisles of Yamaya, we came to the frozen foods section.  That’s where I found this:

Fate?