Cute Pics

What a cutie pie! A recent photo of my new cousin Julia.

Awwww... I guess they used photoshop to edit my aunt out who was actually holding her.

South East Asia, here we come!

Yayy! In 2 days I'll be heading to Malaysia, to heat and humidity, to snorkling and nice beaches, to good cheap food and interesting and new crafts to buy for xmas presents!! i cant wait! the suspense of sitting here in the office doing nothing and freezing my booty off is almost more than I can bear (or is it bare?)!

Anyway so weve been going to a couple xmas parties here and there which were fun. It also snowed a few times, and there are xmas trees and decorations up everywhere... and yet i still dont feel the christmassy mood.... i guess thats actually better cuz, if that had been the case, id be a whole lot more broken up about not being home for xmas. the funny thing is that there ARE xmas trees everywhere (im writing xmas cuz its shorter and my fingers are numb.... not to take the christ out of christmas..no worries...). People are buying gifts as if it was a major holiday here. I didnt get it so when I asked Chie, she said that christmas here is not in the least bit religious.. most people dont know its religious. and that its a day when families exchange presents and couples go out to dinner and have a romantic evening..... After more conversation about this, we discovered that this all happened during the american occupation after WWII. The japanese saw the americans exchanging gifts, putting up a tree, eating good food (although their version of a xmas turkey or ham is a bucket of KFC fried chicken... hmmmm), and singing xmas carols. They decided it was a cool enough holiday so they adopted it and japanified it a bit. The thing is, Liv and I were talking about this, it kind of offends us. It really bothers me that they dont know the purpose of christmas. I mean.. i know ive been talking about how im not really for christianity etc, but i think the part that bothers me is their lack of knowledge on the subject. their blind copying just really irritates me. the fact that its more grossly commercialised here is even more disturbing to me. its not their culture, its not their religion, nor their holiday and there arent enough christians here to justify it being a national holiday or a recognized holiday like hannukah in america or kwanzaa or something. At home we have so much more diversity that it seems more normal to advertise those holidays, i think. This is such a monocultural society that it almost seems as if theyre stealing it cuz it seems cool without knowing why... errg.... cant express myself well on this subject. I think its comparable to a younger sibling or a friend copying what you wear, what you do, what you say, just because they idolize you or think its cool. Ive been there so i know how irritating that is (and no, its not flattering.. its plain irritating). this feels almost the same. Anyway, please share your comments on this. Am I in the wrong for feeling like this? I keep asking myself, why should I care?? But i do. I guess im conflicted and not really sure why....

Ok on a happier note im leaving in 2 days!!! Our plans are to stay a couple days in KL (Kuala Lumpur), shopping, seeing the city, visiting with Yin Yee (friend from high school). Then were off to Penang, which is an island off the coast where well stay for a couple days, snorkeling and relaxing. Then we go to Lankawi, another tourist type island, but supposedly really nice. And then we have a few days free in case we decide to go somewhere else until new years which well spend in KL.

New years day will be spent on an airplane to vietnam (i know.. bad idea the day after... but its only about a 2 hour flight). Well spend a couple days in Ho Chi Minh City, hop a plane to Hue (the cultural, religious and ancient heart of the country) and then to......crap i forgot the name.. hold on while i google search it....ah hah! Nha Trang which is a "flashy" beach resort where we can snorkel, jet-ski, lay on the beach, eat loads of fresh seafood... yeah i know im rubbing it in for those of you guys back home but im soooooooo excited!! woohoo! this is by far the coolest vacation Adam and I have ever planned! And the best part is that is soooo cheap! The cab from the airport to our hotel in Vietnam is $7... can you beat that?? And most of our rooms which are in nice places never go above $20 per night. wow... hopefully next entry will include many cool pics of our travels!

Ok well Im off now to go play boggle for an hour or so... gettin paid to play boggle.. sigh....

Cabins, giant crabs and hot chocolate!

Hey all!
Sorry i havent written in this thing for awhile.. been meaning to but, honestly, ive been procrastinating..

So last weekend was very interesting. We went with our 60+ landlords to their cabin in the inaka (countryside) for some dinner and conversation. We were a little nervous at first cuz they dont speak hardly any english at all! But as it turned out, they tried really hard to communicate in a mix of japanese and english and so did we. I felt i gained a few more vocab words of japanese and Adam seemed to improve from the forced practice as well. I was surprised by how much I could understand and pick up from context and the little japanese I actually know. Anyway, so this cabin was absolutely amazing!! it was made of imported canadian cedar trees.. a real log cabin and it was just gorgeous!! it smelled good, was small and cozy and when the heat was turned on it was super warm! Since the husband used to be a ski instructor and is/was an avid skiier, he had all his old skiis and equipment displayed everywhere and it had a real ski-cabin feel to it. I want a cabin like that so bad it hurts. I keep fanticizing about having a log cabin somewhere near Vancouver, where its warm in the summer, snowy in the winter and where we can ski/snowboard easily. Adam was really impressed and loved the cabin too, so maybe well eventually have one like it! I sure hope so! And yes, mom, you can visit whenever you want!

The dinner they fed us was more like a feast. We had appetizers of camembert cheese and crackers, dried clams, pickled....radishes(?), salad with vegetables straight from her garden!!!, and then a HUGE steamed Hokkaido crab (the same ones we saw in the osaka aquarium). the body of this bugger was about 6 inches in diameter and its armspan was about 2.5-3 feet! the taste was incredible!! Adam doesnt usually like crab at all, but this guy had so much flavor, Adam was gobbling it down as much as i was. Now, when they cracked open the body, it was a female, so there was an egg sack there. I know it sounds gross but the crab caviar was, to me at least, delicious. it was a pale mustard yellow color, and tasted milder than the crab meat itself and was nice and creamy. i thought it was really good. Adam said it was ok (hes not much into seafood, caviar or anything but catfish.. so thats saying something!). After that, we had Nabe, which is a big pot of broth in the middle of the table and you take veggies and meat from a tray and put them in, let them cook and then take them out to put over rice. It was really good, but by this time i was already stuffed, so i only ate a little. Like i said before though, the veggies were straight from her garden and they tasted sooo different and so much better than the store bought ones it was amazing.

During all this, they were pouring us alcohol like prohibition was starting the next day! I think at one point I had a large glass of beer, a glass of wine, a glass of shochu (jp vodka) and water, and a mixed drink all in front my plate at the same time!! i didnt get drunk though.. havent been in the mood lately. But what was really funny was a dream that the husband was telling us about. The wife, Aiko was talking about how he used to be a big drinker until this dream. I guess there was a really beautiful woman that came to him in his dream and made him promise not to drink, or drink as much..... So according to her he'd stopped drinking... well maybe this night was an exception or maybe the dream didnt stop him completely cuz he was sure drinking! He even poured us a beer for breakfast! kinda strange.. but i dont think hes a drunk, so dont think that. they have to be the cutest old couple ive ever seen! They bicker, but its always in good humor and they tease each other all the time and laugh. its sooooo cute! Anyway, we slept on futons in their tatami room upstairs (ok so the cabin was a bit japanified...) and we slept under these down comforters that you could seriously get lost in! they were good enough to keep you warm in 30 below! (well maybe not that cold, but they were pretty good!).

Anyway, so the weekend was excellent and we had a wonderful time, improved our japanese and got some excellent food out of it! This week has been a little more boring, but ive been keeping myself busy enough planning lessons for the new term, reading, as usual and making xmas cards for a gift exchange. OH!! aaaaaand last night I remembered that when we were moving in, wed seen a whole box of instant swiss miss hot choclate packs!! wed stuffed them in the back of the cupboard out of sight. So, i thought, "hot damn!" and grabbed the whole box and brought it to work with me.. Adam isnt a huge chocolate fan, so i took them all. oh well! more for me! Speaking of which, its freezing here in the computer room.. my hands are almost numb, im making typos all over the place so writing a sentence is taking about twice as long to write.. hot chocolate sounds delicious right now, and im starving..

sooo... ill have to head out now and update after the xmas parties this weekend! woohoo!

Books and general nerdiness...

So after about a week and a half of not doing anything but reading and trying to study Japanese, the insanity that comes from severe and prolonged boredom is setting in and theres nothing I can do about it. Im reading two books at once just to switch things up when I get tired of one. "The End of Faith" like I talked about below, which is still and ever more fascinating (although I cant read it in the morning before my coffee... requires too much brain power), and "Lilith's Brood" by Octavia E. Butler which, I must say, is fantastic!!! The final war on Earth has happened and nulcear winter and an ice age set in. But before the last humans die of starvation or radiation exposure from the UV rays that are free to reach the surface of the Earth, since the O-zone layer was completely damaged, a civilization of aliens rescues the last human beings and keeps them in suspended animation for 250 years while they let the Earth recuperate and rebuild/fix it etc... But in order for both species to survive, they must come together genetically and create a new species of Oankali/Human (Oankali being the aliens...). Anyway, it begins with Lilith's story and then goes on from there.. its really quite fascinating and a fun adventure. Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors. She also wrote "Kindred", which is about an African American woman in the 80's who gets sucked back into the 18th century on a plantation and not only is forced to help keep the dipshit son of the plantation owner alive (who just so happens to be her distant ancestor!!) but also is forced to survive in a very hostile environment... its incredible!

Ok wow, how friggin nerdy am I?? So as I was studying Japanese today and at times wanting to beat my head against the wall, I realized that my handwriting sucks balls. I can't for the life of me duplicate the kanji to look anything but a bad interpretation. They seriously look like a kindergartener's handwriting! It's terrible! Never before has a learning a language made me feel quite so retarded. Of course, there are always times when one is learning a language when you feel stupid, but man.... Japanese takes the cake in this area. Not being able to spell anything in French didn't make me feel like I was dumb, it just made me resent the people who invented the French writing system with a passion. Ugh.. Oh well.

After reading Aaron's blog (http://furio1981.blogspot.com) this morning and reading about how he's worried about the reverse culture shock, I started to think about what things will shock or scare me when I go back. This is what I came up with.... Since coming to Japan, my inner dialogue has now become my outer dialogue because nobody can understand me anyway. This can be a MAJOR problem! Another friend was talking about how when he went back to the states and had a layover somewhere he went to Mcdonalds for a quick meal (probably missing fast food? i dunno) and ended up behind a seriously obese man in line. Well.. he had this whole inner-turned-to-outer dialogue problem as well and when he said "God there are so many fat asses around here", thinking that no one would understand him, the guy turned around and glared at him having heard every word.. Im afraid of the same thing happening to me. Fat people really stick out here. Most people are really really thin. I feel like a large cow compared to most Japanese women. Im also worried about driving and roads in general. Ive gotten used to the left side driving and itll scew me up going back. Im gonna end up saying "Hai! wakarimashita!" or "Hai! Arigato gozaimasu!" to people and store clerks in general.. Im gonna bow to people when thanking them.. and continually nod my head and mutter "mmm...mmm..mmmm" when theyre talking to me. Im probably gonna say "Heeeeeeeeeyyyy!" (rising intonation) when Im surprised by something. When I do understand something I might say "Ah so so so so so!" and if I stay here long enough I might end up saying "Nande?!" when I cant believe something. Im sure I'll be shocked and bothered by other things as well... since I will have been away for 1.5 years... its gonna be rough, so I ask all my friends and family back home to be patient with me... it's harder and weirder than you think. Sometimes reverse culture shock can be harder than the original culture shock itself since you think every things supposed to be normal, but what you now deem as normal is the different culture itself... hard to explain but believe me. I remember coming back from Ecuador and speaking Spanish unknowingly to my parents and friends. I lost my ability to express certain things in English and I definitely lost vocabulary. I can tell its already happening with me now.... I know when Anthony came back from Japan for a year and I saw him for the first time at our welcome back party, he was bowing to everyone and looked like he felt just as awkward and out of place as I did... it seemed surreal.

Anyway, thats enough blabbering for one day... I'll try and make something interesting happen soon for my next blog...

Oh! One more thing... I have to pay $100 on Friday for the company end of the year enkai (party)!! The thing is, I have to go or I'll lose face, but $100?!?!?! its gonna be at a Chinese restaurant... and it'd better be some damn fine chinese food (no more jelly fish)!!! In fact, it'd better have some crazy psychadelic ingredients in it for it to be worth so friggin much.. grrrrr.....

New Friends and Costco!!

So this last weekend was pretty interesting. I'll start with a couple incidents earlier on in the week though. So on Thursday of last week as I was coming home from work, I left about 5 mins early and got to the bus stop in time to catch the earlier bus, yaay! Well since there were so many people waiting at the bus stop, I walked to the far end of the bus stop area so that I wouldnt be in the way. I realized that this positioned me toward where the front of the bus would be and, therefore, the door. Now, japanese are very particular about lining up for trains -- usually making 2 straight lines where the doors will be....most of the time (although Ive never before seen a line at this hole in the wall bus stop..) Anyway, realizing that they might think im cutting in line (god forbid!) I kept a distance and waited for the other passengers to board before I got on. Well, as the end of the line was nearing, i inched closer, but one old man obviously thought i was gonna cut in front of him, and all of a sudden he shouted to me angrily in English "No! You go here!" jutting his finger behind him. I was so shocked, not only to be yelled at by an ojiisan (grandpa-type) in English no less, but also because I hadnt been doing anything wrong and was trying to be out of the way! This angered me and I stewed about it for about a day and a half. I also was kicking myself for not saying anything back and just taking it. In my mind, theres NO excuse for being so rude, no matter how old you are. Now, heres the part that gets me. He yelled at me cuz he THOUGHT i was gonna cut in line, right? Well, I cant tell you how many times Ive been waiting patiently in line to get my train tickets from the machine and then right as Im stepping up to the machine a little old woman scoots in and shoves her money in before i have a chance to protest.. GRRRRRR!! This happened to me on Friday night, and even though I said "Hey!" she just ignored me as i mumbled curses not so quietly under my breath. Just because you have one foot in the grave does NOT give you the excuse to cut in line when every one else is waiting paitiently and politely. Thats pure bullshit in my book. Sorry for the lack of sympathy, but if they have enough strength to shove by me and be rude, they have enough strength to wait. So, basically, this enraged me not only cuz she actually cut in front of me (this is like the 3rd time this has happened) but because some guy yelled at ME for THINKING i was gonna do the same thing!!!! I just wish i could curse or at least tell someone off in japanese. I hate getting yelled at and taken advantage of just because im a foreigner. Its bullshit.

Yesterday we met up with Chie, who is a friend of Sean's (good friend back home). He'd met her when he was here in japan and said, shes soooo cool, i just have to meet her, so I did. Guess what? He was right! She was really nice and funny and smart and since she'd lived in Tacoma for 3 years and went to TCC, her English was excellent! So we decided to go to the Costco a little outside of Osaka. Yes, they have a Costco here, and yes its almost just like the ones back home!! Anyway, on the way to meet up with her Adam left our backpack with all our overnight stuff (my make-up, hair stuff, pills, favorite sweater etc..) on the train!!! So Chie helped us locate it and they said that since theyd found it, by law they had to keep it at the place they found it. Well, since that train was headed to the next prefecture over after we got off, my backpack was now in Hyogo prefecture, about 35 mins away if we were lucky..... damn. So, we decided to go to Costco first and get my backpack afterwards since Costco was on the way anyway. Well, Costco was amazing!! After 4.5 months of teeny tiny rations of american food we could find when we were lucky, the sheer volume and quantity at Costco was overwhelming!! We had basically come to take a look so that we knew what was there and we could come back with a suitcase, hehe. When we got in there, though, we wanted to buy the entire place! Instead, we bought a big ol' block of extra sharp cheddar cheese (yaaaay!), guacamole... ohh yeah, and some multi-vitamins. We wouldve bought more, but the backpack had been intended for Costco to carry our stuff and since we didnt have it, our purchases were limited to our armspace.. oh well! OH! but on the way to costco (sorry about the disorganization of this story) we ran into a huge thunder and lightening storm. Luckily for the worst part we were on a bus, but at one point as i was looking out the window, the lightening hit so close, i felt almost blinded by the flash and then deafened by the immediate BOOM of the thunder. It was so lound it shook the bus and you could feel it in your bones! whoa... kinda cool though! Unfortunately it was pissing rain when we got off the bus and wed all forgotten our umbrellas, so I hunkered down under my hood and Chie and Adam had no choice but to get completely drenched.

Ok, so after Costco, (it had stopped raining by this time, thank the Goddess!) we went to take a train to Takarazuka, where my backpack was. Well, as a result of the lightening (most likely the one that blinded me) some of the lights near the tracks were shorted out and all the trains were delayed, messed up, and altogether whacky! Soooo.... instead of it taking us 20 mins to get to our destination, it took us an hour and a half......only to spend a total of 5 mins in the station to get my bag and hop on another train returning...... ugh. But it was a nice ride, despite the length. We got to talk to Chie about a lot of different things and it was really cool. Its nice to finally have a japanese friend!! Yaay!

So this morning im a little wiped out.. the wind last night was knockin things around outside and it was really loud...annnnnddd its FREEEEEZING today!! it was 2C this morning but felt like -2C!! which is like 27F... and they STILL wont turn on the heat in the school!! Everyone is complaining about how friggin cold it is, and yet no one will do anything about it! grrrrrrrrrrr......

So last night Adam and I were talking about possible plans for after JET. We were thinking that wed like to go to Spain for about a month or so to take a language course to brush up our skills and hang out for a bit, while looking for a job there, or maybe in Germany. Wed also like to eventually move to Vancouver BC to get a job... At the language school we were thinking of, which is the same one Adam went to when he was 16 (?) there are people from all over the place who have varying degrees of spanish language ability, sooooo Id not only get to touch up on my Spanish, but also hopefully on my German and French, which would be cool. Anyway, were kinda looking into working for travel agencies or some place that deals with traveling, and most of all utilizing our different languages. Idealy we'd like to live in Europe for a little while. I mean, why not? I was thinking about what our parents would say to us doing all this and my thought is that they wouldnt exactly approve, maybe thinking that were playing too much and need to settle down and get serious... but after thinking about that for awhile and realizing that doesnt sound so great, I thought to myself, "why do we have to settle down? we want to do what makes us happy, which is traveling and constantly doing new things. so as long as we have a balance of comfort (ie enough money to support ourselves, pay back loans, and pay bills) and fun, why should we have to settle for something less than what makes us happy? Just cuz its the norm?" i cant see us doing that at all for a long time. I dont want to have a job that I hate. Period. And neither does Adam. So, we wont settle for that. Sorry parents. We will visit and we know this doesnt make you happy, but hey, we have to do what ticks our clock, theres just no way around it. Idealy wed like to have a job thats interesting, constantly changing and engaging but also relatively close to one of our families.. maybe vancouver is the answer.. not sure.. we shall see!!