Weekends

It's been a long time since I've done a traditional weekend summary type post describing adventures in Japan. Mostly because they don't happen as much as I'd like. But maybe if I try and condense all the fun stuff that happened in the last month or so into one post it will be interesting enough to bother writing about.
A couple weekends ago while shopping for a copy of Parappa the Rapper I managed to inadvertently spoil a tactical espionage mission taking place in the store above Super Potato. However I was immediately CQCed and put down for the count. When I finally awoke, me and Jay decided to head over to Shinjuku where a chocolate show was supposedly taking place. In Shinjuku station we spotted quite possibly the tooliest human being ever. I'm not sure if you can fully comprehend the awful majesty of this hairstyle with only cameraphone pictures to go off of. Regardless, immediately upon seeing the king of all rat tails in person, a chase began to preserve an image for posterity. The fucker didn't make it easy either! I was like 80% jogging to keep him in range as he power walked his way to wherever he was going. Unfortunately westerners of this level of toolishness are not at all uncommon in Japan.

Back home in Chibaragi (apparently people in Tokyo use this word to describe the neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Ibaraki, and Tochigi, as they all blend together into one nothing place), I've mostly been spending the weekends going to Mito, drinking, passing out at Dan's, waking up and bumming around, usually in arcades, then relaxing with some ps2 back in Takahagi or sometimes Oarai. Lessee... memorable stuff... I went to the Drunken Duck, the most infamous gaijin bar in town, for the first time, and was pretty underwhelmed of course. But then the next time I went I managed to inadvertently break up an entire gokon as all 5 females in the matchmaking party at the table next to us surrounded me and started hitting on me. Kinda creepy actually, but also good for the ego.
Other stuff... in McDonald's in Japan, they had a special sandwich called the "Mega Mac" also advertised as "Beef Heaven." It's a Big Mac with double the meat. Ridiculously greasy. As I am American, everyone wants to know if I have tried it, and if its the size of normal hamburgers in America. In this picture Jon is not looking particularly pleased at the All American bounty set out in front of him. I didn't think it was that bad, but certainly not good, and certainly not something I would have eaten if not for the cachet associated with it.

Yeah those two stories just call to mind the whole experience of living in the countryside and being as stereotypically foreign as you can be. I think when most Japanese people hear the word "gaijin" they think: tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, big, hairy, meat eating monster. And uhh... yeah I'm kind of all of those things.

This has its advantages and disadvantages, which I will hopefully write about at a later date.

Allez Cuisine

Well, I might have used cookware officially endorsed by the first Iron Chef of French cuisine, but yea Iron Chef I ain't. I thought this was kind of amusing, so let's take a look at the cooking process for tonight.

First, preparation. Wash the frying pan that has been sitting in the sink since the last time it was used last week, but then get too lazy to dry it, so just put it on the burner and turn the heat on. The water will just evaporate right?
Next, take stock of ingredients. Decide to cook eggs because of short preparation time. You need to have some kind of fat to make sure stuff doesn't burn and stick to the pan right? Add a little bit of olive oil to the pan since there's no other kind of oil or butter or anything. Wait, that pat has been sitting on the burner for a long time. It's probably too hot, better turn it down. Add eggs to the pan, maybe with some salt or pepper.
Hmm, that doesn't look like much food. What else could go with it? Right, rice. It's all set to go in the rice cooker from the last aborted cooking attempt. How long has it been in there... Maybe 5 days? Ooh, yeah, its pretty nasty. Half dried out and half soaked and gunky. Ah well, just put it in the pan. That's how you make fried rice right? Better stir everything around in the pan for a bit too.
Just plain eggs and rice doesn't sound very tasty. Need some flavor. That's what hot sauce is for! But rice is like Asian, and Tabasco isn't... so use the Thai sweet chili sauce. Better put a lot on. Wait, some meat would be good too. The only thing in the fridge is bacon? Ah well, in it goes. Oh shit, those eggs have already been cooked and scrambled for like 5 minutes. Gotta finish this soon or they'll burn in there! Is this bacon cooked already? Probably. Eh, looks done enough. Plate it up.

The end result

Man that was nasty. Greasy and way too sweet, since apparently both the hot sauce and bacon were mostly sugar. That rice really had no business being eaten in any way either. Maybe cooking isn't really the best course of action.

sorted (basically)

well I haven't signed anything yet, but long story short, I've decided to give Takahagi another year. i feel like i should have a more definite reason that i can write about and tell people when they inevitably ask why, but i'm gonna have to think a bit more before i can do that. i know there are things i still want to get out of living in japan. i want to get better at japanese and at least pass the nikkyuu. i want to make actual japanese friends. i want to buy a mark II touring V and learn how to drift. and while i do worry about missing another year back home, i think in the end it will have to wait. honestly, i know i will greatly miss out on being able to see my friends and family back home. but also, one thing i have to thank the JET program for is providing me with the motivation and clarity of purpose in going to law school. my last post was completely true, but maybe it came off as being a bit negative in how i view the day to day activities of my job. in the end, i still don't want the weekends to be over, and i still can't wait for friday night to come around, but the time in between isn't all that bad. i really really like my job. i have more "damn, life is good" moments than any other time I can think of. but, JET hopefully has shown me that there is a lot more to life than just a "fun" 9-5 job. i have no real idea of what law school would offer me, but i know now that i want to go down that road next. i only hope that after giving me that desire JET hasn't taken away my ability to actually accomplish it, as I can feel my grasp on the English language lessening every single day...

anyway. i will come back to america eventually. please wait for me. i miss everyone back home, and it was not an easy decision to postpone our reunion for another year. i know my path will bring me back in line with the people that matter to me, but it will have to be just a little later. in the meantime, come to japan! you might not ever get the chance again to have such a knowledgeable tour guide that you know so well :) also, i think i wasn't completely telling the truth last time when i said i didn't really have any girls on the mind. turns out thats impossible.

2 weeks or so to figure this out

hey hey, look at that. it did in fact take another month and a half for me to write a new post (I just finished the post from December 20th a couple minutes ago). first off, i never got around to linking in all the pictures that i talked about a couple posts ago. but you can take a look at the gallery of all my pictures of takahagi here . i feel like there's a lot more that i want to share about this town. unfortunately i already have to decide within the next couple weeks whether or not i want to spend another year working and living in takahagi, and its a hell of a question.

here's my daily routine: get up, bike to school (or get driven to kimida) and get there maybe 2 minutes before the first class starts. if i have to teach, then i go to class, and talk with my JTE on the way to figure out what we will do. more often than not, my role in class is to read out of the textbook, wander around the room and help kids as they do worksheets, and occasionally something more interesting. i have lunch with a different class each day, which is mostly eaten in silence, unless the kids are feeling talkative. but really, they barely have enough time to finish all their food in the lunch break, so I cut them some slack. when i don't have class, i sit in the teachers room and attempt to amuse myself, or to do something productive, but usually just end up dozing in my chair. at 4:15 i leave, usually feeling slightly guilty about not attending the basketball practice. (but im gonna start back up with it! really!) after school i usually have some errands to run, and then i go to the gym with tim, get back, eat some food and chill for an hour or two on the internet or with some video games before i go to sleep. on weekends, I will usually meet up with friends in Mito, or, if someone comes up with a good enough reason, I will spend the change (about $60 round trip) and time (at least 2 hours each way) to go into Tokyo.

it might not sound like it from that description, but my job is actually my favorite part of life these days. my job is easy and pretty stress free, if not particularly challenging. overall i really enjoy working with (all but one) of the japanese teachers. and every day one of my kids will end up doing something or saying something to make me smile or laugh. sometimes even on purpose. and when we actually plan out lessons, and they work, i get a huge feeling of satisfaction. the flip side of how easy my job is is that its not particularly fulfilling. however, i know from experience that its mostly because of the lack of work i put into most lessons. as i said, when it works, its a great feeling. but, even when I feel like I have accomplished something in my job, there is still a nagging feeling that I should be doing something more with my life.
I think what I ideally want out of my job is to do something that I enjoy and I feel I am uniquely qualified for. So overall JET gives me half of that, which is better than the last job I had, which gave me neither. one of the things holding me back from truly being fulfilled in my job as an ALT is the sense that I am replaceable. which I am. which is why JET is a temporary position. this feeling stops me from getting everything i need even when I'm thinking to myself "this job is awesome."

and for the past week, I haven't even been liking my job very much at all. unfortunately the A part of ALT stands for assistant, which means that the Japanese teachers we are assigned to work with control a large part of the job experience for us. I feel lucky in that I am perfectly happy and content with 8 of the 9 junior high school teachers I work with. but that last teacher makes me dread work. i realize that much of my frustration and anger at working with her is in no way her fault, but that doesn't stop the situation from making me want to get the fuck out of the country. the worst part is how my frustrations carry over to other people at that school who aren't even involved in teaching english, or the kids themselves.

to add onto that, life outside of the classroom leaves much to be desired as well. the weekday routine isn't bad. going to the gym at least 3 times a week is a pretty good habit to get into. but unfortunately thats basically all I have time to do. the biggest problem with takahagi is its location. being 45 minutes to an hour from the nearest group of people i can hang out with means that i have to invest a serious amount of time just for traveling to and from my destination. so, i can't really go to the gym, then meet up with friends, and then get home. and thats just if i want to go to mito, which is a nice place, but no tokyo. going outside of ibaraki is an even bigger investment, and straight out impossible on a weekday. even on the weekends it means finding a place to stay and paying even more money, or leaving to catch the last train back to takahagi just when things are starting to get fun.

so life is fairly solitary. and isolated. which I have actually been dealing with pretty well. in fact, living by myself was one of the things i was looking forward to doing in japan. not that i havent enjoyed having roommates in the past, but it is very very comforting to come back home and have it be your home, and no one else's. im also finding being single and not looking for any kind of relationship nice. More than just the fact that that this is the longest I've gone without having a girlfriend since soph year of college, this is the first time in a long time when I'm not obsessing or worrying over one girl or another. i like having all that time and mental capacity open once again. But, do I really want my life to just be something I can "deal with?" the past couple weekends I have been going to Tokyo and having a great time. but that train ride back home to ibaraki is hell. more than that, I can tell that the isolation and solitude could get to be more than i can deal with sometime soon. but thank god for the weekends.

ok i basically just vomited up the entire contents of my brain onto my blog space. there's always more to say, but i still need to sort a lot out. i basically wrote this for myself, but if you actually read all this, thanks! i would definitely appreciate any thoughts.

teaching

starting this at school to give me a bit more inspiration to finally finish it. ive wanted to write more in depth about my whole experience teaching in japan, as in the actual teaching part, since that takes up most of my time here. and because i enjoy it. usually something funny or unusual happens at school and i want to write it down to remember it but then i forget. so here's some funny quotes from today

(this first dialog was almost all in Japanese, im not sure if that made it funnier or not)
JTE: one deer is the same as two deer, one or multiple, they're both deer. you remember we learned "sheep" before right? it is the same pattern with some animals like that.
Sakamoto kun: "goat" is the same too isn't it!
JTE: umm, i think that the plural of "goat" is "goats"...

JTE (same one as earlier, in English): OK class, please repeat after the Bryan.

ok so 70% of the time I teach at the awesome school where this happened, Takahagi Junior High School. The other 30% is split between a small middle school out in the middle of nowhere with 12 students total, and any of the various kindergartens and elementary schools in the area. Every time I go to another school (especially the mountain one) I am reminded of how much I like Takachuu. The funny thing is, before I started up at Takachuu, all I heard from staff at the board of education, other ALTs, even kids at other schools, was how bad Takachuu was. Everyone made it seem like it was more of a continual prison riot than a school for kids going through puberty. And while the kids might not pay as much attention or have quite the same level as Akiyama (nerd school), they make up for it with enthusiasm. Not for English, or even studying at all, but just in general. I am barraged by "Hello Bryan!"s every time I walk down the hall. Granted, this is at least partly because of the constant "manner up" campaigns to make sure the students have a genki aisatsu, but they do it outside of school too. There are a ton of great teachers at Takachuu too, the English staff is amazing, everything is great. I can't wait to get back there next week.

Life in Takahagi

Been awhile since I posted anything here yeah? I suppose that's because of the absence of huge awesome events in Ibaraki lately. Since life is just kinda flowing along at this point, as the winter semester draws to a close, I thought I would try and give everyone a little picture tour of Takahagi, to show you what life is like in a small city of around 30,000 people in central Japan.

I've mentioned this before, but from my experiences in Japan before, life was always centered around the train station. It was the hub of all activity in any given area. Food, services, entertainment, everything either in the train station itself or within 50 yards of it. Takahagi is pretty different. Here's a picture of the train station in Takahagi. What can you see? Well, there are a couple vending machines, and just out of frame to the right is a drycleaners. That's about it. There used to be an Ito Yokado, a big department store chain, right next to the station, but all that's left now is an empty lot, as you can see by all the gravel by the fence. The post office and Police Box are nice and close to the station, but other than that... not a whole lot. This is the main road going out from the station. There are a few small stores on this main road, but I personally haven't had much need for new glasses or fresh fish. Sometimes they play background music over the PA by the train station. It's kind of comforting, in a video game kind of way. I probably shouldn't have started out talking about central Takahagi, because it's mostly depressing... especially when you look at streets like this, one of the cross streets off of the main drag. You can tell that this used to be a shopping area too. But now all that's left is a rusted out archway with advertisements for abandoned stores. It's creepy. One day when it's really foggy and dark out I'm gonna get a flashlight and a broken radio that only puts out static and scare the crap out of myself walking around there.

But, once you get away from the train station, things are a little better. Not that there is an abundance of things to do or places to go, but at least the slow feeling of decay leaves. Takahagi is the opposite of Tokyo, more like a small suburb in America, in that there's not much of a central area, but once you get in your car and drive towards the outskirts of where people live, you can get to some big stores. In Takahagi, we have a Hard Off, Off House, Wonder Goo, Book Off, various grocery stores, and the Super Mall, with Beisea Electronics and Cainz Home. I have no idea how they come up with these names. But luckily these stores are all semi-bike accessible.

Takahagi easily redeems itself, once you get outside of the actual uhh "downtown" area. The western part of Takahagi is all mountains. You can see some nice mountains in the background of some of the pictures. I've been up in the mountains a couple times to do some hiking and go to Kimida JHS, and it's a very tranquil area. Just thank god I don't live there, it would be 10 times more boring than life now. To the east is the beach, which is my favorite part about town. Leading up to the beach are some fields and a river that people fish on a lot. Unfortunately I think it's getting too cold to hang out there much anymore. But come spring, I know where I will be when I just want to relax. Check out the pictures, its really just a beach, but its a damn nice place to be, and I'm glad it's here.

So, this probably sounded like a lot of complaining, but Takahagi isn't all that bad. Next time I want to write more about my actual job, which I enjoy very much, sometimes. I guess the best way to describe life overall right now is that while there are still low points, I am having way more "holy crap life is good" moments than usual. I'm off to wander around a bit more on my day off. Hopefully my next entry won't take another month and a half to write.

wandering in Mito

So there was a three day holiday this weekend, and it was going to be a busy one thanks to the double header of the Daisuki Ibaraki Festival and the Tsuchiura Hanabi competition. This is right after my big welcome reception Thursday night too. That was fun, delicious food that no one actually ate because they were too busy talking to each other. I didn't know how formal it was going to be, though, and I was a little under dressed. Luckily they liked my speech that I gave in Japanese. It pays to be conversational. Plus, afterwards I went over to this really classy looking bar with a new salaryman friend I made. I have passed by that place riding my bike down Route 6, and I always wanted to go in, after seeing all the bottles they have lined up on the shelves. The weird thing is, right after I went in for the first time, I got a text from Jay with a picture of some salaryman guy he met at HIS reception going on at the same time in Oarai. The salaryman wanted to know if I knew of a bar called Wild at Heart in Takahagi. Weird coincidence. Man... if you think about it it could have been extremely sketch. There wasn't any one else in the bar besides the bartender, who my new salaryman friend only called "master."

. . .

Except it was actually just cool. No menu, just a bartender who was fully stocked and knew exactly what he was doing. And a huge collection of classic rock and some older blues stuff. He had Howlin Wolf, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Zepplin. So I would definitely go back. But yeah, this is all just a digression, because starting Thursday night it was pouring rain, which graduated into a full fledged typhoon Friday. On Friday after school I went with the other teachers to watch out for the kids going home. Yatabe sensei just said "We have to protect them."

Unfortunately the rain flooded out both the grounds for the Ibaraki festival (which I didn't really want to go to anyway) and the Fireworks tournament (which would have been awesome). So here I was sitting on a three day weekend and no real plans. Felt like a big waste. Ended up meeting up with some JETs in Mito after dicking around in Takahagi. I've spent a decent amount of time in Mito now, but it's kind of a strange city to get a handle on. It's about the size of St. Louis population wise, and has a decent amount of interesting stuff there. I crashed at Dan's place with everyone else Sat night, after we all got lost looking for a bellydancing party (wtf) somewhere in Kairakuen, which is a pretty huge park. Took a taxi out from the station, asked the guy to take me to the location I received via text message, and the cabbie is just like "uhhh... why??" I arrived to a mostly empty parking lot and ended up walking back to the station. Turns out pretty much the same thing happened to everyone else. I blame society. Sunday morning everyone got up early to man the JET booth at the second day of the Ibaraki Festival, which was strange, I guess they just didnt get the email that it was canceled that day too (hahaha thanks Seth, that is the best excuse ever). So I just wandered around Mito a lot. Mito is laid out along one big street that goes out from the train station (inconveniently even in a big city like the capital of Ibaraki there's pretty much just one train station to use). There are all kinds of shops and restaurants along the street, for some reason including a lot of hip hop clothing stores that play taped American radio stations. Which is totally balls, because one played the American commercials too, including one for Taco Bell which made me insanely jealous and hungry. Before the stores open they are all shuttered, and the shutters had some pretty cool graffiti covering them as you can see here.

After walking down the main drag I decided to branch out a bit, and I ended up walking down a side street and finding the Mito History Museum. I didn't really see much in the way of exhibits, because I was just distracted by how fucking gorgeous it was outside. I chilled on a park bench for awhile and tried to figure out what the hell Haruki Murakami was trying to say in his book I've been reading called The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Unfortunately all that graduating with an English degree really did for me was illustrate how little I comprehend of the literary value in most books. I'd rather not just read 800 pages and only think "oh, that was weird," but that seems to be the most prevalent thought after finishing anything by Murakami. Anyway, sitting on the park bench at around 10 AM, staring at the sky, I was dismayed that most of the time my thoughts were just turning to any one of the half dozen or so girls that, well, that I have been thinking about lately. For various reasons. Which ironically is what the main character in Wind Up Bird ended up doing most of the time. Eventually I wandered off and discovered that the History Museum butts up right next to Kairakuen, which is really beautiful when its actually daytime. I really like wandering around parks in Japan. Or just wandering in general. It's a good feeling to just see something you've never seen before, or just the opposite, to see something familiar after being confronted with so many strange things. Japan in general is definitely starting to just be familiar though. Mito functions much differently than Tokyo or Makuhari, but bits and pieces still link them all together.

Monday was the big day off, and I spent it chilling in Takahagi. It needed to be done, especially since wandering around a city like Mito goes hand in hand with spending money. Me and Tim decided to explore around the beach area, and ended up going out on a pier that was still under construction (gaijin smashing past several do not enter signs) and chilling on some giant concrete tetrahedrons next to some fishermen. Hey, at least we had an excuse for ignoring the signs saying keep out. In the end, I really enjoyed this weekend despite all of my plans for the fireworks and whatnot being canceled. It was good just to stay in Ibaraki and enjoy the local sights. Being on the beach in Takahagi was especially nice, because it felt like something I would do on vacation, only it's the place where I live. April said that JET is basically like a paid vacation, so I guess I would have to agree to some extent. It also goes to show that the more you plan for something the more disappointed you will be for it. So I should just stop planning anything for my birthday this weekend. Ha.