Nothin’ of any note has happened in the past couple days besides having some delicious noodles in Makurazaki. Oh, there was one kind of amusing thing. Hozono-sensei went up to the crummy printer that Yuchi-sensei is always failing to get to work, and everyone held their breath as he sent something to print…. then, magically, a sheet of paper came out, and he through his hands up in the air, exclaiming, “Yatta!” I cracked up by myself, only because I knew about this.

Anyway, some questions I have been sent:

Do they drink tea for everything?
Yeah. All the time. Hot green tea, or cold barley tea. The girls in the office serve up hot tea for the teachers in the morning, and cold tea for guests to refresh them. I think the green tea tastes better, but i’m getting used to the other stuff. I received tea when I visited my phone guy, and when I met the principals of the schools. The Honda place actually served me ice coffee, which surprised me. The weirdest thing was when all the teachers got together a few days before the educational district volleyball tournament. We practiced our asses off, and everyone was pouring sweat. Then we took a break, and they busted out the tea… which is probably the worst thing you can drink after exerting yourself. The tea is diuretic, which means it sucks the salt and fluids out of your body to create excess urine. It dries you out, similarly to alcohol. Yet here they all are, sweating bullets, and they refresh themselves with something that’ll only dry them out more. I think rate of kidney failure has got to be noticeably high here, cuz they don’t drink much water. They do, however, partake in sports drinks similar to Gatorade (called Amino Suppli, Aquarius, and my personally favorite title: Pocari Sweat)

Do they look down on physical contact?
Yeah, physical contact is pretty much reserved for people you’re close to. Kamino-sensei will occasionally laugh and give someone a light thwack on the arm, as jokesters are prone to do. But other than this, I have only seen people touch for the occasional handshake. I think I ONCE saw two teenagers holding hands. I was out for lunch a week or two ago with some other ALTs, and when another came in that they hadn’t seen in a long time, they stood up and hugged. The rest of the japanese folks in the restaurant seemed to avert their eyes at the display. It’s more polite to let someone have their space: thus, the bowing.

Do they bow to everyone?
They bow in the same way we shake hands, except much more often. MUCH more often. I bow when I enter the office, a few times towards everyone. I also must stand and bow everytime a guest enters the office. Then I bow when I leave the office. I bow when I enter a store, because they also bow to me a bit. I bow when I leave the store, thanking them for selling me their stuff. They bow in appreciation. If you have to stop because a pedestrian is in your way, they will race to the side of the street, and then bow to you in thanks. If you’re walking down the street, you will bow a little to say hello. The thing is, there different depths of bowing. Keeping your back and head straight, you bow just a few degrees for casual passing or for convenience store transactions. Otherwise the smallest bow you would offer is 15 degrees, perhaps to someone of obviously lower rank than you. The average bow is 30 degrees, to your peers or coworkers. If you screwed up and are apologizing, or asking someone for a big favor, then you go for the full, raging 45 bow, with your eyes looking down at the ground. Its strange, but intuitive to some degree. You still have to pay attention.

Do they leave their shoes outside their doors?
Japanese society is divided into “Inside” and “Outside”. That’s where some of the gender separation kicks in: women control the inside affairs, that of the home and family, while men represent the outside affairs, those of work and business. This idea spreads to buildings. Outside is dirty, inside is clean. At a grocery or convenience shop or a public office building you don’t have to take your shoes off. But in most restaurants, all homes, schools, and some more specialized shops (like a photo shop I went to) there is a small well when you first walk in. I have one in my own apartment. There you can remove your shoes. Some places provide guest slippers. To wear your shoes past these small foyers would be considered not just rude, but almost disgusting, like not washing your hands after you use the bathroom. You’re bringing in all the filth from the ground outside, despoiling the tidiness of the inside world. Since arriving, I’ve had to buy business slippers for inside my schools, as well as a pair of athletic shoes for gymanasiums (both of which just BARELY fit…. my toes are a bit pinched in the athletic shoes).

Do they sit on the floor?
Offices and schools and shops and everything have chairs to sit in to do business or to wait for service. If you walk into more of an “inside” or comfortable place, expect to sit on little cushions on the floor. I have been to many restaurants like this, and I even have a table in my japanese-style room that I will sit on the floor at come winter (its got a heater built into the bottom). If you are expected to sit on the floor, there WILL be cushions, no one just plops onto the ground. IN fact, at the Kagoshima orientation, a few of us foreigners got lunch at the convenience store and then returned to the green lawn outside the International Center. Thinking about it later, it probably seemed disgusting to anyone passing by… “Great Togo’s ghost! Those foreigners are rolling in shit while they eat their lunch!”

But what were we to do? It is also rude to eat and walk at the same time. One MUST sit to eat. Ice cream is the only exception.

Are relations between men and women “archaic”?
Eh… i guess they are. Things are still very traditional here. Arranged marriages are common, from what I understand, for the simple reason that modern japanese men have really poor social skills in general. There are “career women” that choose to forego getting married in order to pursue a career. Men cannot be promoted past a certain point unless they have a wife (who else will prepare all the company social events?). As Japan gets more exposure to the West, women seek more independence, sort of disrupting the way things used to be. I’d say, from my pathetically small amount of time spent here, that Japan’s man/woman social situations are still undergoing revision and adaptation to Western practices. We’ll see where they end up.

Sorry my answer’s not very good on that last question, the social interactions between genders in Japan would be more fit for a doctorate thesis for sociologists. I could be very wrong on many of those accounts.

Feel free to shoot more questions my way anytime, folks. You know where to hit me. Maybe.

Did a test drive yesterday to two of my farther schools to cement their locations in my mind, as well as get an idea on travel time, as well as just get some drivin’ practice. Kasasa high school was closed, but when I arrived at Kasasa Jr. High in the next town, I discovered the grounds were crawling with people and kids. They were all cleaning up the area, weeding, sweeping, washing, and I guess otherwise preparing for opening.

I met my JTE, and we chatted for a bit, but here was the funny thing; the whole time I’m there, students would walk by staring at me, and I’d occasionally wave, they’d grin and wave back. But as I was leaving there were a couple girls standing there. I waved, and they shrieked, jumped up and down, and ran off screaming the equivalent of “He’s so cooooool!” They joined another group of girls, they looked, and started squealing as well.

Guess I’m really a celebrity.

On the way back, we (Pierre was with me, as I haven’t mentioned) stopped at a scenic vista point and looked at a kick ass island off the coast for a bit. On the way back to the car, we discovered discarded in the bushes was a set of matching bra and panties. Frickin’ japanese perverts! It was proof that I really was where I am.

Today I headed to Kawanabe Koko to do some lesson planning for the upcoming school dates. At the end of the day, a group of girls was hovering outside the door of the office, chatting and occasionally peeking in. I went up to them and introduced myself, had a bit of course conversation, and then they invited me upstairs to see their “Oendan” which is kind of like a cheerleading performance for both genders. Its more like a synchronized bad-ass pseudo-kata, reminding me of the many poses Ultraman would strike before blasting the giant radioactive monster. They were all super enthusiastic and friendly, and invited me to watch their routine.

It totally kicked my ass, it was fantastic. Afterwards they displayed some of what seemed like a comedy routine, and then asked me to join in.

“Ariasu… you pray in bando? You pray piano?”
“No, no piano.”
“You pray bai-o-rin?”
“Bowling?” I ask, mimicking the action of bowling. Everyone laughs, “Oh, not BOWRING, but BIORIN! Violin! No, I do not play violin.”
“But you bowring?” he asked, and then did a nice flowery bowl. “Prease try.”
So I hold up my imaginary ball, stamp my feet a little, squint one eye and aim, and then I launch it, sending my leg across too far, collapsing to the ground, slapping the ground and trying to urge the ball to hit the imaginary pins, cheering it on. Another guy grabs my shoulders and also starts to point and goad the ball, and the third guy jumps in front, straightens himself out like a bowling pin, and then with a clatter falls over. We all jump up and cheer!

And the crowd loved it. I just did improv with foreigners and managed to make it amusing. I told Pierre about this and he was like, “What the hell? You just did what it took me a year to do with my students!”

I’m PUMPED to start teaching.

Last night there was a party for the whole area at Club R here in my town… what a classy joint! Well lit, cool design, decent food and drink. We had an all-you-can-eat-and-drink for two and a half hours, where I hung with all the local ALTs (whom I had already met) as well as some native nihon-jin (a few of which were JTEs). After lots of chatting and socializing, most people left, and six of us (4 ALTs, 2 japanese) went to a karaoke bar in our town, which was like a gross hole in the wall… imagine the shittiest bowling alley you’ve been to, clear it of all people, and that’s what this karaoke place was like. Except we had a blast singing with each other. Bohemian Rhapsody is such a good karaoke tune.

Anyhow, I let the ALTs crash at my place (the nihonjin were locals and went home) at 5am. We woke up the next morning, I made some eggs, and everyone departed. At that point, I did some errands, cleaned up, and then picked up Pierre to take me to the southern port town of Makurazaki to get my keitai (cell phone).

Pierre has brought much business to this fellow (Nomomura-san? Something like that…)\that works down there, and for good reason; the guy is very eager to speak english. It is certainly not the best english, but he tries and is probably the best japanese english speaker I have met that is not in the education business. We were there for hours (after a fucking gorgeous ride down… today was not humid, so the air was even clearer and I could see MUCH farther with my incredible brag-worthy 30/20 vision) doing business. I opted for buying a somewhat expensive phone (I think about 100 bucks, but he gave me a discount because he was so fricking AWeSOME), but it will not only work in America if I bring it home, but it has a japanese/english and english/korean and english/chinese in it! An electronic dictionary would cost around 100 bucks by itself, and this thing can take calls, take pictures, hold about 16mb of stuff, and a huge bucketload of other features I don’t even know about. It’s pretty sexy as well. I think I’ll get my money’s worth out of the translator alone. Oh, and the guy also gave me a free t-shirt, bringing my total t-shirt count to six or seven (the rest of my luggage was filled with computer and dress shirts).

After getting the phone and t-shirt and everything, I told the guy (whose shop, by the way, is not only a phone store, but also a car repairshop specializing in electrical work) that he was “Very generous.” He didn’t know the word, so I busted out my BRAND NEW PHONE and showed him the translation. “Oh no!” he said. “I am not generous. You are… my business!”

After some ramen and gyoza, Pierre and I met up with the Chiran ALT who goes by the name of Abs (he’s british, but of pakistani descent [when Abs saw this, he stabbed me in the throat with a letter opener and told me he was of Indian descent, because his hair was curly.). We went bowling (I won both games, much to Abs’ dismay), did some racing video games (also defeated Abs, to his further dismay) and a round of air hockey (where Abs finally won and thus felt good about himself again).

Drove home, and here I am now!

I now own 56% of a Honda Wagon R! Its used, got about 108,000 km on it, and cost me 250,000 yen. (I always leave the conversions to the readers. It is my job, after all, to internationalize. Plus, maybe I have some kind of european fanbase i don’t know about that loves metric. In any case, I recommend www.convertit.com). It will definitely get me around, and for that I cannot complain.

I took it for a test drive around the block a few days ago and gave my supervisor Kamino-sensei a heart attack. First I pulled out into the street, and discovered that it was going strangely slow, had very little pick-up. Kamino-sensei quickly discovered the problem… emergency break was engaged. HA HA HAH FUNNY MISTAKE NUMBER ONE.

Then, he told me to turn left. I flicked the signal, and suddenly my window was covered in soap and the wipers started going nuts. Seems that the levers are reversed from american cars! H A A HA HAHA FUNNY MISTAKE NUMBER TWO. Fortunately, even though i’m on the left and the wheel’s on the right, the brake and gas pedals are not reversed. So my basic knee-jerk reactions in driving can maintain some integrity.

Only two mistakes, but Kamino-sensei was wiping his face with his towel and quickly drummed his hand against his heart, communicating that his blood pressure had risen from my antics. He’s a great sport, though, and knows I need a car.

The roads are uncomfortably narrow here, but the fastest speed limit I’ve ever seen is 50 km/h, so that’s not really fast at all. Good, cuz I’d hate to hit a tanuki.

The best, most ironic part of the whole car purchase; almost any place you do business and spend a fair amount of money, you will often get a gift. This is often a towel or a t-shirt. But because i had been interrogated by an old man at the office (with all the lovely young women assistants behind him listening attentively) about my tastes in alcohol, my gift for purchasing a car was two huge bottles of Asahi beer.

I was given beer. For purchasing a car. In a country with a 0.000% blood alcohol content limit.

Japan rocks my socks off.

Tammy was kind enough to pick me, then Pierre, up and haul us out to Kagoshima city for our contract signing, which was followed by a two day prefectural orientation. It was all business, and went pretty well over all. It was informative, but not overly so; the Tokyo orientation as well as the kagoshima living guide we were issued covered much of the info.

A highlight was the roleplaying exercise. We were divided into five groups, and given a common situation. Then the group halved, and one side was to perform the WRONG way to handle it, the other the CORRECT way to handle it. Our situation was as follows:

You have just completed your first year as an ALT. At the congratulatory party, your supervisor orders a very expensive local dish to celebrate. You discover that the dish is raw horse meat.

I got put in the “Correct” category, and that was okay. We had one guy be the new ALT, and these two asian-canadians were given a fan and a towel I happened to have on me (its so nasty hot and muggy, most everyone carries towels around). I took the role of the supervisor, and putting on my best deep samurai voice (those of you that have seen me do Improv know what I’m talking about), and our skit went as follows. The girls stood to the side, fanning me and wiping and dabbing my face with the towel.

Me: “AHHH! ATARASHII EI-ER-TEE! WERUCOME!”
ALT: Oh, thank you for having me.
Me: WE WIRRU CEROBURATE WITH FAMOUS KYUUSHU DISH! WAITA, BASASHI KUDASAI!
(another girl puts down a folder, which is our imaginary plate)
ALT: Hmm, what is this?
Me: IT IS… UHH… MEAT… YOU KNOW….
(I make a horse neigh, then stand up and gallop in place. As the audience roars, I dash up to the white board and draw a super quick profile of a horse head with a big eye, and a huge tear coming from the eye).
Me: YOU KNOW ZISS? ITTA IS… HORUSU!
ALT: I’ve never tried this….
Me: OHHH, YOU NEED SHOCHU!
(pouring imaginary kyushu booze into imaginary cup)
ALT:Ah, yes, thanks, liquid courage!
(ALT tries some)
ALT: Its not so bad!
Me: SUBARASHIIIIII!

It was awesome. Everyone was dying, and I got compliments all night. The other groups then all proceeded to do their own hilarious skits. Its hilarious to hear everyone’s impressions of japanese people. The guys are always so low and guttural, the females always so high-pitched and chipper.

That evening was the BEST, though. We all went to the Asahi Beer Dome, which, for 3500 yen, was two hours of all you can eat and drink. I was expecting it to be all beer, but upon arrival I discovered that on the table they had set up for us was a fifth of some kind of scotch whiskey! OH BOY! So I had a bunch of that while devouring meat ‘n veggies ‘n shrimp ‘n rice and all the other stuff they kept bringing out (aside from the coffee jello… blech) while discussing the intricacies of the male psyche to a few other folks. It was a great time, everyone was in a hella great mood, and we all wandered over to a dance club where (for another 3000 yen) it was all you could drink and dance all night. I was pretty good, so I only had a few more drinks over the three hours I was there, chugging plenty of water as well (it was shweaty in there).

Some people went NUTS, I saw at least three separate western girls making out hardcore in the corner of the dance floor during the evening, and there was just massive dancing the entire time. It was utterly fantastic. I wandered out of the place when i sensed that the crowd was thinning a bit, and started wandering off in a random direction before I realized I was totally lost. I stopped in a Family Mart convenience store and asked where the neighborhood of my hotel was. The guy whips out a MASSIVE cardboard map from behind teh counter and shows me the way. I wander back, a big grin on my face, a spring in my step, through all the bustling japanese, and manage (very luckily) to find my hotel. Went upstairs ‘n passed out.

This morning I woke up feeling FANTASTIC. I had obviously hit the perfect limit, and consumed the perfect amount of water, because I felt no ill side effects all day. Which was not the case for many others. There were, embarrassingly, two ALTs that could hardly keep their heads up all day and looked green as the dickens (one of which was one of the make-out queens).

All in all, a fantastic time. Hopped on the bus home, and dropped my suit off at a dry-cleaners on the walk back to my apartment (where this middle-age couple talked at me for like fifteen minutes despite my apologies and announcement that I didn’t understand. They still kept insisting that my nihongo was “sugoi”, or great!)

This place rocks, and the other ALTs I came here with are a wild bunch. There’s a week long seminar in mid-september that is a crash course in Japanese that will probably end up being a berserk spree of debauchery. At the same time, I think we’ll also get our work done. We’re not totally irresponsible…

…I think.

Finally met Tammy today, my other office ALT, today. We seemed to hit it off nicely, she’s a literature major, so we chatted books some. I also finished up the ton of drawings for Pierre’s presentation. They are rather hilarious, if I may say so myself. Otherwise an eventful day. The next two days I’m going back into Kagoshima city to do the prefectural orientation, and that should prove to be quite the blast, especially the evening party. Details on that after it happens, probl’y Thursday.

The real fun happened yesterday, at the Ibusuki Art Market (I think I spelled it right). My buddy Chris picked me up on Saturday, I crashed at his place, and then we got up early Sunday morning to go to a town about an hour north of the city. There we set up Chris’ art at a little table in a gymnasium, and from 8am-6pm we sat. Chris drew postcard-sized portraits for people with charcoal for a measly 500 yen. I sat around and shot the shit with him and his girlfriend Rie, and then sometimes would wander off to read his collection of Maxx paperbacks. He sold a few of his paintings, and walked home with around 300 bucks worth o’ yen. Good job, man!

Here’s what made the whole thing hilarious: we were the freak show. We’re both super tall (I’m 6′3″, he’s 6′4) and blonde. The fact that two of us were hovering around made people FLOCK around. I mean, the place wasn’t super busy or anything, but we definitely had a concentration of people ducking by. Sometimes there was a line to have a portrait done by Chris. He was the man of the hour(day). However, my peripheral existence drew the following occurences:

–Maybe four or five different old men came up to me and started talking. “Nihongo dame desu!” I would say (Japanese is no good!), or more simply “wakarimasen,” I don’t understand. They would press on and then I would just start repeating the sentences I did know, “America no Chicago kara kimashita.” That would always get them to nod, and say more stuff, at which I smiled and shrugged. They would always grin huge and then walk away, sometimes offering to shake my hand.

–Chris told me that while I was reading the Maxx, a couple of really cute girls “looked me up and down, as though they were scanning you with lasers.” Ha, what, I’m getting checked out? What the hell? One of them had the balls to tell Rie that I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. Ah, seems my celebrity look-alike has been chosen for me. Pierre has been told he looks like Brad Pritt. And he doesn’t. Whatsoever. I DEFINITELY look more like DiCaprio than he does Brad Pritt.

–Another woman came up to me and wanted to have a picture taken with me. Then her friend took like twenty photos. I was laughing the whole time at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Afterwards she asked for my address to send me copies. I happened to not have my address on me at the time, so they got Chris and Rie’s address, who I guess will forward them to me. She then gave me a random postcard with her e-mail and name on the back. Seeing this, I was glad that she didn’t have my address. I could just imagine me leaving my apartment for work and her shooting me in the neck with a tranquilizer dart and dragging me off to take more pictures.

–Two little boys, maybe around 7 or 8, ran up to me. One of them grabbed my arm and exclaimed, “GAIJIN?!”
“Hai! America kara kimashita. Eigo sensei desu,” I answered, telling him my home as well as that i’m an english teacher. “Amerika…” he pondered. He proceeded to ask me a question. I looked at Rie for help, and she laughed. “He wants to know how to say ‘muscle man’ in English.”
“Oh,” I said, turning back to him, “Muscle man.”
A look of astonishment crossed his face (which was hilarious), and he repeated it in utter confusion and disbelief, “Ma-so man?!”
Then his face snapped back to normal and he said, “Buh bye!” and scampered off, ne’er to be seen again.

The day was a nice change of pace, and it was good to see that Chris did so well. I think he’s gonna be in their local paper. I myself am going to be in some stalker’s scrapbook under the heading “I LOVE LEO.”

Christ, still raining. Musta rained all night. Oh well, the rain makes me feel less bad about sitting around my apartment. Won’t go on for too long, though, my old friend Troutman from college, who has been living out here for two years and is the reason I put Kagoshima as my first preference, is gonna pick me up tonight and take me back to his and his girlfriend Rie’s place. Tomorrow we’re heading to some kinda art market, and Troutman’s gonna try to sell some of his paintings. Maybe I’ll do a few cartoons to sell for a couple hundred yen a piece.

Spent the morning catchin’ up with people online (this being my first online opportunity to be home when the rest of the western world is awake), and maybe I’ll play some Psychonauts before I head out. But first, for those that are curious, I shall explain where I’ve been working for the past month.

Kawanabe Kyouiko Jimusho

Every mornin’ I walk down a block or two to the bus stop, where I wait for awhile. Sometimes there’s an obaachan (old lady) or this one high school girl who is always friendly and smiling. We exchange hellos because conversation beyond that is not an option.

The bus drives around for half an hour, then drops me off a block from my building and 270 yen poorer. I think the building is some kind of general use governmental building, because there are many different offices. I walk up to mine, walk in and declare “Ohayo gozaimasu” (good morning) to everyone, and bow a few times towards various people. They return the chant, and I sit down at my desk. At this point I will either study japanese, read a novel, doodle, or shoot the breeze with Pierre or Ueno-san. Until its time to go home. It’s ridiculous that I’m getting paid, cuz I’m seriously just sitting there. What makes the place neat is the people that work there with me.

The character roster:
To my left, there is only one more desk. Tammy from Texas sits there, but I have not met her yet. She’s been taking language lessons all month. To my right sits Pierre, an absolute prince of a guy that helped me out immensely upon arriving here. Hung out with me the first few evenings, lent me his mountain bike for temporary transport, gets me in touch with his connections. He’s from Toronto, in his mid-30s, knows all kinds of martial arts, and has a wicked talent for accents and jokes. He’s made my stay here thus far immensely fun.

To his right, sits the elderly Yuchi-sensei. This guy works quietly most of the day, and seems to have awful luck with the office printer. He’s the only one it breaks for, and he mutters what I imagine to be colorful japanese curses under his breath as smoke and springs launch from the printer as he approaches it.

Directly across from me is the cute, spritely Nakao-san. She seems to be some sort of secretary, constantly on the phone or marking little columns in record books. She’s the one I bug when Pierre or Ueno-san are not there. When I have a question, I spend twenty minutes with a dictionary and grammar rules assembling the sentences, then I draw a little picture to further illustrate what I’m asking. She always cracks up at my doodles, cuz they all tend to have me looking pathetic and haggard, eyes wide in fear and desperation.

To her left is Mukai-sensei, the one who CHARRENGED me to nigagori and is a judo beast. The guy picks on me a lot, asking me questions that I cannot understand, but everyone else laughs at. He also must tell jokes constantly on the phone, because within minutes of any phone call he’s roaring with laughter. He’s definitely the noise-maker of the crowd (not counting us gaijin). To be fair, he can be very professional and hardworking, which he is most of the time. Ah, yeah, he teaches me occasional bits of Kagoma-ben, the local dialect which is absolutely nothing like literary nihongo.

example:
English: My name is Arius.
Nihongo: Watashi wa Ariasu desu.
Kagoma-ben: Atai a Ariasu jaddo.

What the hell!?

To his left is Hozono-sensei. He’s a friendly dude, occasionally tells jokes and asks me questions. I met his seven year old son at the volleyball event, and the kid, after his initial apprehensions, was pretty much crawling all over me. To Hozono-sensei’s left is Kamino-sensei, my personal supervisor. This guy’s a RIOT. He’ll constantly hold out three fingers horizontally, like he’s signaling “EAST SIDE” or something, and ask, “Arius, what rate? A, B, Shee?” to get a sense of whether I like something or not. His english is limited, but is the next best in the office. Usually after I tell him “A pruss” or “Shee mai-nuss”, he’ll grin, revealing metal molars, hit me in the arm, then point at me, laughing. His most common phrases: “One moment, prease!” “TPO!” (which stands for Time Place Occasion, I guess, but he says it randomly, I don’t know what he’s trying to say) or “Top secret!”

The above people make up one island of desks. Behind me is a second island. Ueno-san, the english speaking office lady sits there in the corner closest to me. To her left is a short, stocky guy with kick-ass greased back hair, all but a pompadour. His name is Ueno-san too. He’s pretty quiet, though, and is only there sometimes. Across from him is a guy with HUGE coke-bottle glasses named Torigoe-san. The guy’s real mousey looking, and his eyes look enormous behind his glasses. He’s always friendly, and delighted when I say anything in Japanese. I think he may have been a real nerdy kid growing up, and still retains some of the lack of confidence from time to time. Then, completing the small 4 desk island, is Mochidome-san. She is a REALLY cute woman, late twenties (same as Nakao-san), and I think she’s in charge of finances and banking. She’ll be the one to make sure I get my transportation money back when I go to the various schools. She’s friendly, pretty, and unlike most other japanese women, has a surprisingly rich, alto voice. I could listen to her talk all day.

At the far end of the office, at two large desks, sit the two Kachos. Sameshima-Kacho is a little frog-like guy, very friendly and approachable. He is the “Advisory Manager” according to the seating chart that was given to me, but I don’t know what that means. The other desk is occupied by Uto-Kacho, a really tall bald guy. He’s only an inch shorter than me, and on the first day, came up to me and gently touched my spiked hair, wondering if it was the natural color. He’s got an electronic dictionary in his desk, so we are able to communicate splendidly.

Finally, there is a door. Beyond that door is Setoue-Shocho. Shocho means director, and this guy gets his own office. He strikes me as coming from noble stock. He was probably handsome twenty years ago, he’s physically fit (his volleyball serves made me shudder in fear), but seems to be quite warm beyond the otherwise very professional demeanor. I don’t see much of him, but he did thank me in person for playing volleyball with all of them.

That’s my office. Come September, I’ll probably only visit there once a month. But they’ve been a great group so far. And I guess next time I need something to write about, I’ll tell you all about the volleyball tournament I was recruited into.

‘Twas pouring all morning. I actually recall crawling off my futon at some point before the sun rose because it was raining so hard to close my windows and balcony doors. Woke up, got dressed, threw on my poncho, and headed out into the torrent. I was completely soaked–from the knees down. My trusty campin’ poncho kept me dry otherwise.

Pierre got me doing a dozen illustrations for his orientation presentation next week in Kagoshima. Its a more localized orientation just for this prefecture. But drawing all this silly stuff… man, it really got the blood flowing for drawing again. Its such a blast to create a ridiculous image.

I was planning on somehow making it out to the Chiran fireworks display in the next town, held right outside the old Kamikaze airport (now re-dubbed Peace Museum). But alas, the torrent held strong all day, and now I think it is safe to assume there shall be no celebration. So what was I supposed to do with my ruined evening?

I threw on my swim trunks, left my undershirt on, threw on the poncho and strapped my sandals on and went walking down the road to a little sake-ya (booze shop) sort of nestled in between a tire store and some homes. I walked in to the little one-room shop, and a middle-age guy greeted me merrily. I looked around a bit, then looked at him, and he smiled, asking, “Shochu?”

No getting around it. It was time to try Shochu.

He pointed to a few bottles on the shelf, and I, neglecting to bring my dictionary, was stuck trying to converse with my 30 word vocabulary. Finally he went into the backroom and pulled out this HUGE 1.8L bottle. I ask how much it is, “Ikura desu ka?” and he says 1700 yen. Wow, not bad at all. So I bought it. It had written in hiragana (which I can read) “Satsuma” which is the name of the peninsula I’m on. So this stuff’s brewed REALLY locally.

Next stop, the “Dream & Dream Fresh Foods” store. Next door is the “Supa-Doragu Cosmo,” which is like a massive Walmart/Walgreen, with an emphasis in pharmaceuticals and beauty products, but also having plenty of food and other random items (like an aisle for dress clothes… weird). I had been in the Super-Drug, but not this Fresh Foods place. It seemed, fortunately, to have all the things the Super-Drug didn’t… that is, fresh food (amazing!). I looked around, bought some orange juice and cuts of pork, then went home. Heated up m’ frying pan, tossed a slap of pork on, got some water boiling for the hyper-refined carb noodles that are delicious, and pulled out a cucumber, and had my very first home-cooked meal. And you know… it was fun. I think I know why my folks dig it.

I just need more spices. But those will come soon.

What to do with the rest of the night? Dunno. But I’m sipping on my shochu/orange juice combo (which I will not mix again, I think a shoot ‘n chase situation might be better). I guess I’ll put in another story from the previous weeks.

Tokyo Concluded
The rest of Tokyo orientation was, as previously described, a blur. My sleep schedule seemed to be getting WORSE as the days went by, probably because I was sneaking cat naps in all day. I remember waking up at like 5:30pm, putting on my suit, and wandering down to the ballroom in a numb haze, and fighting with other JETs to get at the food they had put out on buffet tables. And drinking beer. And talking to an ENORMOUS british guy.

Southern Kyuushu people (which I am one of) got together afterwards to go out to a “Shabu Shabu” place. We sat down at this massively long table (like 40 of us). Little grills with pans were equally distributed, and then the servers kept bringing out shit for us to cook in the pan: little strips of beef and endless veggies. They kept the beer flowing too, and it was a great time. I ended up learning about some of the political issues in Australia (immigration, resource management, kangaroo marriage rights, etc.)

Afterwards (since we all somehow still had energy) we went to a Karaoke place. More booze flowed, and people from Canada, the US, England, Ireland, and Australia were all in one little room watching each other sing and laughing immensely. I found myself seated next to this really rowdy Irishman named Paul, who kept screaming stuff into my ear, at which I nodded, since I couldn’t understand a damned thing. I think we were talking about sports. Which probably explained why I didn’t understand a damned thing.

Strangely, all these different westerners from various origins all came together to sing Bohemian Rhapsody, as though we were all struck by the Holy Spirit in a baptist church.

Crap, I think we had one more night after that before taking off to Kagoshima. I’d be hard-pressed to tell you if I sat through more lectures or if I ate the brains of the living. Either one seemed to fit the state I was in.

But before I knew it, it was morning, and I was on a jet plane heading to where my new home was to be… Kagoshima. It was on that jet that it finally hit me completely: OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO JAPAN TO LIVE AND WORK FOR A YEAR.

A little before noon, Ueno-san informs me that Kamino-sensei (my supervisor) is going to drive me around the area and show me the neighboring towns. This confused me, we couldn’t possibly be going on a road trip. But Kamino-sensei pulled out a map of the area and traced his finger west to the coast and south around the peninsula. Let me tell you, it was FANTASTIC.

My mother told me never to get into a car with a strange girl. But you it seems, Bond-san, will get into anything with any girl.

I dunno if I’ve mentioned, but so far I’ve thought Satsuma peninsula in Kagoshima, where I live, was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. And then I saw the ocean here. Goddamn, just mountains rolling up and down with little buildings nestled in their valleys, surrounded by fields of soy and rice and tea. But then, further west, when we hit the coast, the water was Caribbean blue, and small beaches interrupted endless progressions of cliff faces that are just completely covered in flora. There are small islands one can swim to only 100 meters away… man, the whole trip was just unbelievably gorgeous.

We hit a few points of interest along this route. The first was a little fish market, or maybe it was a factory that processed a lot of the fresh fish caught. We went in and ordered seafood ramen, and it was by far the most delicious plate of noodles I have eaten in Japan thus far. Perhaps the only thing that has beaten it out as far as meals go was some tonkatsu I had in the city my first weekend here.

From there, we visited the Windu Paaku, which had ten wind generators placed across the length of the island, producing some 500-600 kilowatts a day (not sure what that means, though). They had an observation tower in the middle of the peninsula, and we drove up narrow winding roads to be treated of a breathtaking view of the ocean and the distant island north.

From there we started heading south along the coast, through more “snakeroads” as Kamino-sensei referred to them, sometimes with nothing between the road and an almost-vertical drop except a little metal bumper fence. Anyone that comes to visit me, I will take along this same road (provided there’s no rain) because its just fantastic, and probably continues to be so for all the seasons.

At one point Kamino-sensei asks me, “Ariasu, do you know double oh seven?”
“James Bond, 007?”
“Yes! Here is location!”

We pull around a corner, and I am treated to a tantalizingly familiar bay with small mountains poking up from its center, and it hits me like a brick: You Only Live Twice…

Sure enough, on the other side of the bay, we see a five foot stone monument reading “You Only Live Twice” with a small statement about filming here, and three signatures: the producer’s, a kanji signature (maybe the guy who played Tiger Tanaka?) and SEAN CONNERY. Totally unbelievable. I will have to see the movie again to find what specifically happens in this locale, but man, the location scouts did their job well on picking this place.

Ah, I can’t adequately describe how gorgeous it was, and I don’t yet have a digicam out here (stupid, I know, but this car thing is really gonna put me out for a little while). Everyone will just have to come visit me and see it for themselves. We journeyed around through a few more towns and then I was dropped off at home, instead of a couple blocks away at the bus stop, so that was nice.

Ueno-san should be bringing a rickety old office chair she had lying around her home to my place in an hour or so… thank the Lawd! I’ve been using a little stool that, while nice, cannot support me for more than 30 minutes without inflicting massive spinal damage. It’ll also save me a few bucks since i’m gonna have to buy an econo-car soon. During my lunch break I went to the local Honda dealer and saw the used car for 218,000 yen. That’s the cheapest cars come in Japan, because as they get older, an inspection tax called shaken gets higher and higher. They then ship off the little cars that are too expensive in tax over to Europe, since they’ve still got plenty of life, and Eastern Europeans proceed to drive them until they disintegrate into rustdust.

I wanted to avoid getting a car because of the expense, but the schools I have to visit are up to 25 km away, if not more. I live pretty much in the smack dab middle of this map, just north of the brown smuge in the middle. Kaseda, where my office is, is the urban-looking area northwest of it, near that big ol’ river that pours out into the Sea o’ Japan. Got another two schools to the west, towards that peninsula, and one south east a little ways from the central splotch. I’d have marked up a copy of that map, but then Google would come and steal my body parts in a lawsuit.

Long story short, I need a car, and it looks like the cheapest thing I can get looks like a minivan but is in fact two sizes too small, and when I climbed in I felt like I was in a go-cart. Plenty of room for passengers, but no room for a big foreigner to drive. Gonna have to make do.

And now to share a bit more of the Tokyo Blur.

The Comfortable American

I wake up early the first morning because I know I need to do some ironing. The attire is business formal, so I gots to look good. I tear the room up, and cannot find an iron, which in my experience is strange for a hotel room to lack. So my roomie, Carl, informs me that there is a hospitality room on the 4th floor (I’m on the 33rd, in a deluxe room, overlooking what could’ve easily been Wayne Tower from Gotham City). So, I slip on the white robe and slippers provided by the hotel, and mosey into the elevator.

I walk out into a fricking zoo. There’s tons of JETs and hotel staff everywhere, swarming all over each other like ants… fully dressed ants. I quickly swallow the HUGE BALL OF EMBARASSMENT that welled up in my throat, thinking, “You know what? Half these people are brits or canucks… i’m an American! I can do what I WANT.” So, putting on an air of self-confidence, I mosey into the hospitality room with the irons, expecting people there to be half-naked at least.

No. These people got dressed before coming down to iron what they were just going to have to change into anyway. How inefficient. So I just stood there, in my RIDICULOUS WHITE ROBE that is feeling smaller and shorter by the minute. While I waited in line, a guy leaned over and said to me in what I think was an Aussie accent, “Ey, you’ve got the right idea, dressin’ all comfortable.”
I responded, “Ah, but the fact that I’m the only one dressed comfortably makes me feel very UNcomfortable.”
“Eh, that’s alright! You’re never gonna see most of these people again anyway once we’re all shipped out.”

That was true! So I finally got to iron, and waltzed back upstairs. Carl said upon my return, “Dude, I’m pretty surprised you just went down there in a bathrobe.”
“Carl, I’m pretty surprised you didn’t stop me.”