Marriage and Mustard

As of October 28th, Morgan and I have been married for four years! When we lived in Evansville, we went to Nagasaki Inn for hibachi every year on our anniversary. This year, we were actually in Japan for our anniversary, so we went to an American restaurant called Boogie Buns. I didn't expect the place to be as authentically American as it is. We got nice big burgers though, with fries and a chocolate milkshake.

Real American food!

When we were downtown, on our way to and from Boogie Buns, we came across one of those Peruvian pan flute bands near the train station. Apparently, Fukuyama's multicultural area is to the left of Fukuyama Station, and to the right you've pretty much got Mister Donut, KFC, and shopping malls.

Japanese Pizza Hut

Getting pizza over here is a lot more complicated. Because I don't speak Japanese, ordering on the phone is pretty much out of the question. Pizza Hut is too far to have delivered, but Pizza Royal Hat is within range. Can't call them though. I could potentially order from Pizza Royal Hat online, but I'd hate to screw up the order somehow due to inability to read the options on their site.

Tonight, we decided to try getting Pizza Hut for the first time. I had to ride there on my bike, order the pizzas, wait on them, wrap the boxes in a towel to keep them warm, and strap them to my bike to take home. It's a pretty long ride, but I'll do anything for pizza.

Pepperoni/sausage/corn and mayo/meat

They may have been a lot of trouble to get, but these pizzas really really made me happy. They were every bit as good as American Pizza Hut, if not better for having strange and interesting toppings. We didn't see it until I only had one slice left, but the pizzas came with some kind of green hot sauce taped to the side of the boxes.

Hot Green Sauce

Hot sauce and pizza in Japan seem to be inseparable. Every time I've ordered pizza, except at the fancy Italian place, it came with hot sauce. I could definitely get used to that.

Engrish - Part 1

English is a global language. Even in non-English speaking countries, English tends to pop up here and there on various advertisements, t-shirts, etc. This is especially true of Japan. When English is being used in a country where it is not widely spoken, awkward wording, misspellings, and some pretty outrageous things can end up in print. There is a website devoted to showcasing such linguistic looneyness called Engrish.com.

I'll never be able to match Engrish's collection, but here are some good one's I've spotted so far:

"Burger Dericious"

 

I actually wanted to try it, but I think they're out of business.

"Vegeta Oil"

 

 

 

 

I was extremely amused by Vegeta Oil. We actually bought this, and I'm proud to say it's in on the shelf in our kitchen. Best vegetable oil ever! I don't have a picture of it, but I bought some drink called Goku at one point.

"Korean hot pebbles food"

Boy, I can't wait to try some hot pebbles food! Maybe it's a reference to potential gastrointestinal problems resulting from the consumption of said food.

"This is the most comfortable notebook you have ever run into.

You will feel like writing with it all the time."

- Primitive Brand Notebook

 

I don't have a graphic for this one, but it's something I saw printed on the front of one of my students' notebooks. It isn't exactly grammatically incorrect, it's just weird and made me laugh.

Our First Care Package from Mom

 This poor box looks like it went through hell on the way here. It was all dented and misshapen when we got it. When I opened the door, little old postal worker was straining to hold the box up, and he was holding it sideways. It had pretty much lost it's shape entirely, so it looked like he was hanging onto a big heavy beanbag.

 Japanese customs is pretty serious biz, and they seriously open all foreign packages and rummage through them. Despite the outward appearance of the package, nothing inside was damaged.

We tore into the box and spread everything out on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, it's all but impossible to ship meat to Japan, but Mom sent us plenty of good ol' American food.

A lot of the stuff she sent is the kind of stuff we were used to having at home, but just can't get in Japan. She sent a ton of mac & cheese, which we had for lunch today. We got some tortillas and refried beans, which is good because there is virtually no Mexican food available in our area. The Lipton soup is going to be really really nice this winter when it's really cold. There's a giant Jiff peanut butter, which I can't live without. They have peanut butter here, but it's more expensive, and they don't have Jiff, which seriously tastes the best.

Now we can eat like Americans!

Toys! Glorious Japanese Toys!

Today, after about a week of living on rice and eggs, I got my first paycheck! Of course, we bought the obvious stuff, like groceries. Or, Morgan bought them while I was at work anyway. After I got out of work, we got dinner downtown at a place called Spicy Café. Pretty good stuff. The Cokes had fresh pineapple slices on the rims of the glasses. Classy.

As much as I was dying to get reasonable stuff like toilet paper and food as soon as my check came, I also had my eye on a particular toy. Surprised?  If you know me, probably not. This particular toy is the Revoltech rendition of Woody from Toy Story.

I actually took this one out of the box. I absolutely had to. Check him out:

 Yes, even his facial expressions are changeable! I am going to try very hard not to blow all my money on toys, but stuff like Revoltech is going to make that really tough.

Welcome Party

Last night, my coworkers threw Morgan and me a welcome party. I was asked to choose between Japanese, Chinese, or Italian food, and we quickly settled on Italian. We thought briefly that we would offend the other teachers if we didn't pick Japanese, but hey, they gave us options, so we went with what we really wanted. Apparently they all really like Italian though, so that worked out just fine.

The place they took us to turned out to be phenomenal! I was pretty worried that the "Italian" food would have too much of a Japanese twist, but someone I work with told me that the chef had trained in Italy, and when she made the reservations, she told him that two Americans would be trying Italian food in Japan for the first time. His response was that he would try his best to represent Italian cuisine for Japan. He definitely made a great impression on me with his six different pizzas. I have been absolutely craving pizza, and last night I was able to eat tons of it. In addition to the pizzas, various different pastas were brought out, and each of them was great. I even ate some kind of terrifying prawn creature with some pasta covered in a sauce made from its brains--something I wouldn't have even touched back in the States. After eating that critter, trying some of the sea bream, which was brought out pretty much fully intact with eyes and everything, was really no big deal. That thing was actually pretty good too. I'm not going to go and order my own sea creatures to eat in the future, but at least now I'm becoming a lot less picky. Then again, I might have a way to go yet, because I did turn my nose up at the raw squid. I mean, it was seriously just a dead baby squid sitting there on the plate. I'm not at that level yet.

Dessert was three different kinds of ice cream, and then a coffee. By the end of that meal, we were actually pretty stuffed. Actually being full was soooo nice, as we've been living on mostly rice and eggs as we wait for my first big paycheck. In accordance with Japanese custom, Morgan and I ate free!

The whole night was pretty nice, and I thought it was pretty neat for Morgan to meet the people I work with every day. The atmosphere was so much more relaxed than in the English office. During work, everyone is so quiet and busy, but last night they were really super talkative. We got onto the topic of pets when someone mentioned that Americans would never eat dog meat. They were really surprised to hear that Americans really do keep their dogs inside the house, sleep with them in the bed, and dress them up in little clothes. That stuff goes on in Tokyo, but not out here in the inaka, I guess.

Two Pre-internet Connection Blogs

9/3/2010 – My First Day at My Visit School, and First Weekend Alone in the Apartment

                I went to my visit school, today. That school is just down the street from my house, and because it’s such a short walk, I was able to sleep in. Or, I would have been able to sleep in, but I kept waking up starting at around 5:30, when I usually wake up to go to my regular school. My keitai alarm was set for 7:30, but I just gave up and got up around maybe 6:15 or so. I’m always terrified that I won’t wake up in time for work. I was happy enough to be awake though, because every morning I get e-mail on my phone from Morgan. If it wasn’t for my keitai, I’d have absolutely lost it by now. It’s my only contact with Morgan and anyone back home. It keeps me sane. I probably shouldn’t have it out at work, or really even when I’m out walking from point A to point B because I bet it’s considered rude like everything else. I can’t help it though. Having contact with Morgan, even if I have to fiddle with the stupid number pad to enter text, is worth more to me than anything right now.

                My day at work went pretty well, I think. My visit school is dirtier than my regular school, and has even less air conditioning, but at least it’s really close, and it doesn’t cost me money just to get there. I have my own desk in the English office at that school too, which is pretty boss. That desk doesn’t really have anything in it though, but it’s nice to have my own place to be. The English office there is on the third floor, in the next building after the one I enter from. Not that that’s at all interesting, but it might help me remember if I actually type that out. Another thing I am constantly scared of is getting lost. So, anyway, my visit school had been described to me as the bad school, especially compared to the more academic school I usually work at. Even when I got there this morning, the teachers started right away apologizing for how bad the students were and warning me that they’re really rude. As soon as I got a good look at some of the students, I could see what they were talking about. These kids had their uniform shirts unbuttoned, barely any were wearing their ties, the girls had tons of make-up on, and most of them had their skirts hemmed up to the point of near obscenity. They were way more talkative than my regular students too. Some girl I ran into a few times in the hallway had tons of questions for me, and then the next time I saw her she said, “I want you, I need you, I love you!” as her friends tried to make excuses for her and drag her away.

                I really enjoyed my first class of the day. The teacher seemed to have a really good casual relationship with his students. Some of the kids were sleeping, some were putting on make-up, and others were reading manga. These are the sort of students I’m used to! They each had their own individual personality, for better or worse. I felt a lot more comfortable in that classroom. Unfortunately, the next couple classes went kinda crappy, I think. The next class I had, the students didn’t seem to understand a word I was saying, and we dragged through the whole lesson. It was like pulling teeth to get any student interaction at all. The teacher, an older lady, kept telling me the students didn’t understand, and that they were bad at English so please explain more. Uh, how am I supposed to explain stuff like “My name is…” and “I am from…”? Also, even though I had said my own name about a hundred times, the teacher decided it was Jeff-sensei about halfway through the class. The next class, my last one for the day, was somewhere in between. The students seemed to understand most of what I said, but the teacher kinda sidetracked me from my lesson and had me ask the students a bunch of questions that they didn’t want to answer. Whatever. It’s his class, so I just did as I was told. That’s pretty much my plan over here. Unless I’m asked to do something ridiculous, I’m just going to do everything I’m told to do, and hopefully the other English teachers will like me. I think they like me well enough so far, but it’s hard to gauge these people.

                At any rate, my first work week is over. I’m in my apartment alone now, listening to all the sounds in the neighborhood through my paper thin walls and un-insulated windows, waiting for an appropriate time to go to sleep. I’m a little worried about this weekend actually. I certainly need the rest, but I don’t like being in the apartment alone for two whole days. It’s bad enough having no one to talk to in regular English day-to-day, but at least I can speak loud slow English with wildly animated gestures to my co-workers and students during the week.

9/4/2010 – Lonely Weekend

 

                I expected this weekend to be really tough on me emotionally, as I would be in the apartment by myself all day long with very little to keep me occupied or distract me. Actually though, today hasn’t been that bad. I had my fellow JET neighbor Diane over today to show me how to work the washing machine, and right now I’ve got my whites in there. I can hear ‘em sloshin’ around out on the balcony even though the door is closed.

I was pretty worried I’d screw my clothes up somehow in that rickety old washer, but I’ve been checking in on them and they seem to be getting along just fine in there. When they’re finished, I’m going to have to hang them up to dry. Even in the super modern Japanese homes I see around the neighborhood, people here hang their clothes out to dry. It’s a cultural thing. They think it’s better for the clothes and better for the environment because it uses less energy. They’re probably right.

When I was first settling in here in Fukuyama, I was beginning to think that Japan wasn’t quite as futuristic as it’s made out to be, aside from in big cities like Tokyo. My neighborhood, which is a suburb of Fukuyama called Minomi is in the inaka, or countryside, even though it’s just across the bridge from the city. It seems pretty old fashioned and a lot of stuff around here is old and worn out. I’m starting to realize though, that stuff around here isn’t like that because of poverty or lack of technology. Everything around here that’s old and worn looking still works.  Old stuff isn’t traded in for new unless it needs to be. Things are done cheaply here to conserve money and resources, and to treat the environment kindly.

Garbage here all has to be sorted before you can get rid of it, and when it’s collected, a majority of it is recycled. There are quite a few different categories you have to separate everything into, and the different types of garbage are collected on different days. Most of the time, labels and lids have to be taken off things and go into separate categories. It’s all quite a hassle.  There’s no dumpster here either. There’s a sort of cage outside that the garbage is put into to be collected. It reminds me of the dump from the Gamecube Animal Crossing. Because of this system, it’s sometimes hard to get rid of things in Japan. People here spend a lot more time thinking about where their waste is actually going to end up.

A lot of the time, I get frustrated when I’m just trying to throw something out and I have to stop and take it apart. I think, In America, we’d just throw this shit out! It all goes in one trash can! So far, I’ve been just letting my trash cans fill up—putting off taking it out because I’m intimidated by the whole process. Tuesday is burnable waste day, and I think I’m ready. Monday night before I go to sleep, I’ll take my burnable waste down. I’m starting to accept the way things are done here. It may be harder, but it’s the right thing to do.

In America, we throw everything away, but even though our country is huge and has room for vast landfills, the trash will eventually crowd us out, just like my trash here would eventually start to pile up in the apartment. The convenience of just throwing everything in the same place will create a much bigger inconvenience down the road. My mom has a phrase that I think applies here: “Even a dog knows not to shit where he sleeps.” I think I was a little too quick to change my mind about Japan being futuristic. The way things are done here in Minomi might not be as cutting edge as in Tokyo, but a lot of things seem to be done with consideration for the future. America is just like me, putting off sorting out its trash.

The whites turned out fine, by the way. They look so quaint hanging out there too. Standing out there with them, I can smell that clean clothes smell—different from our detergent back home, but pleasant just the same—and hear the cicadas chirping and crows cawing. It just embodies summer so well somehow. Makes you want to write a haiku or something.