When you're illiterate, everything is a caption contest.

As I mentioned before, my inability to read in Japan is hugely frustrating. There are three Japanese alphabets, the Hiragana, the Katakana and then the Kanji. The Hiragana and the Katakana have 47 characters a piece, each representing a syllable. The frustrating part about these two is that they both represent the same sounds which seems like a waste. Katakana is used to spell out foriegn words that are used in Japanese, while Hiragana is used along with the third alphabet, the kanji, to form complete sentences. The Kanji are the reason it will be nearly impossible for me to learn to read. There are something like 8,000 Kanji characters. That's a little daunting. Ok, enough about the mechanics behind my illiteracy, my point is it makes for a fun game: What could that sign possibly say?

This one is just a few yards from my house. I have a pretty good idea of what it actually says, but I like my version better based on the look of horror on the child's face.

1

Punish misbehaved children!
Sign them up for Sakura's torturous little league.
Saturday morning directly adjacent to the bee keeping field.

2
Dial 110 to summon Inspector Gadget!
Come on, am I wrong? He even has the same car.

3

Ladies: Please keep your eyes on the road while driving.
-brought to you by the Japanese ministry of stereotype reduction.

Have to give Cat credit on this one, she joined in on my game earlier this week:
4
Dead Albino Snake-Easiest Pet EVER! - Only 19.99 plus tax

And now it's your turn to play my dear friends. Leave your ideas for the following sign in the comments section. Also, feel free to come up with new ones for the other signs. (remember you can click on it to see the full sized version) Let's see what you can do.

Here it is:
5

The beginnings of a social life in Japan

Shibuya, Tokyo. Taken while running for the train.

Today marks three weeks in Japan, and I'm amazed at how much I have accomplished already. My apartment is furnished, functional and very comfy. I've managed to feed myself, shop for all kinds of stuff, use the trains, make some friends, express myself using a mixture of Japanese and sign language, teach classes of all ages, and I have started to have trouble speaking English, which I hear is a good sign.
There are still plenty of places left to explore in my own little town, but the night sky is lighter to the west for a reason, and that reason is Tokyo. I'm amazed I waited two weeks to go check it out, but hell, I was busy. The morning that I planned to go to Tokyo I noticed I was procrastinating, which is typical behavior for me when I am nervous about something. I cleaned the apartment, updated my blog, did some laundry and finally around 2pm I looked in the mirror and said "Oh for Christ's sake, you've made it this far, just get on the train." So I did. I took the Keisei line to Ueno which is home to the city's biggest park. As I came up the stairs out of the train station, this was my very first glimpse of Tokyo.

Aside from just setting foot in the city, I had a mission this day. My neighbor Natasha performs with a improv comedy troop on the last Friday of each month in an area of the city called Shibuya. After noticing that none of the subway maps were in English, I decided I better set about finding Shibuya sooner rather than later and explore once I had found the bar where I was supposed to be at 7:30. I was glad I did because it took me nearly two hours to find my way there.
I felt a lot less like a fish out of water in Tokyo which I think is in part because I am a city girl at heart, but mostly because people don't stare at me in the city. I'm just another foreigner here on business or vacation, but certainly not a rarity. Back in Chiba, I can be standing on the train platform just like everyone else, but people will stare at me like I'm on stilts juggling severed limbs. I understand that there are very few foreigners outside of Tokyo, but certainly these people have TV. Something must have prepared them for the fact that one day, in this age of airplanes, they might encounter someone taller than 5'4" without brown eyes. I try not to take this personally, but sometimes it goes on way too long. I thought of the perfect checkmate to end these staring contests though. I'm going to say, in perfect Japanese, "your T-shirt doesn't make any sense."
See, everyone here wears t-shirts with English all over them, and very few of them follow any kind of logic. I'm preparing a whole separate blog entry about written Japanglish, which makes me laugh aloud at least once a day, but I digress. Back to the big city.
So I found the Crocodile Club, which is a blissfully familiar ex-pat hangout. Just about everyone in there was either American, Canadian, British or unfortunately, Australian. I made three friends in the first 10 minutes. I was alone, but they seated me at a big table that quickly filled up. Next to me were Erica, Caroline and Masako who all work here as voice-over artists. Apparently that's the other "English teacher" in Japan. There's a big demand for English narration in just about everything they export (anime, movies, video games, instructional videos) not to mention the English loud speaker announcements you hear everywhere in Tokyo. Anyway, we exchanged numbers by the end of the night and I promised them I'd call next time I was in the area.
The night of comedy was really good and much needed. The first half of the night was stand up, and since it was all ex-pats doing the jokes, most of it was observational comedy about what an infinitely wacky place Japan is. The second half was improv by Natasha's group "spontaneous confusion". They were awesome. Natasha was a crowd favorite and a few people told me she was the funniest one, even before they knew we were friends. Her facial expressions can't be beat, and it turns out she can sing too. As luck would have it, she ended up having to make up a Broadway musical style tune about blowing up an oil rig, but that's how improv goes I guess.

Spontaneous Confusion

Chris and Natasha on stage

After the show, we stuck around for a few songs from the resident crooner, but had to move quick to catch the last train back to Katsutadai. The system works like this. You either leave Tokyo by Midnight, or you're in for the long haul until the first train at 5am. There are alternatives like 24 hour coffee shops and internet cafes that rent private space by the hour so you can sleep, or the famous capsule hotels, but most people just choose stay at the bars (which close at 6am) and try to pace themselves until the sun comes up. It's a strange kind of choose your own adventure that takes place just as your judgment becomes impaired. Go home too early or stay out too late, there is no middle ground. It makes going out a real commitment and guarantees that your next day is screwed, so my next order of business is to find some friends with couches right in the middle of things. Oh, did I mention that the last train home is packed way beyond standing room only with wasted business men who have been pounding them back since 5:00? Yeah, Tokyo friends with couches: must get some of those.

The obvious logical alternative is to party right here at home, so that's just what I did. Yesterday (Sunday), I reached my limit on the amount of time I can spend with myself (turns out it's three weeks). I am bored to death with me, and was starting to feel the first real pangs of loneliness and homesickness. My solution: I talked with some friends at home via Skype and then sent out a mass email to my fellow Katsu teachers that read: Beers, my house, 8ish.
Seven people showed up and problem solved. We limited the work talk to a few minutes and then discussed the following: The Tokyo train dilemma, the weird music they play in grocery stores, best fireworks locations, visiting Moms, Obon vacation, early 90's hip hop, Japanese TV, the penis festival, why Katsu is better than Kita, the road of death (henceforth known as 49th street), Japanese neighbors, Super Mario Bros III, currency exchange, bullet trains and plans for next Saturday. I took these photos as proof that I hadn't developed imaginary friends to talk to.
*whispers* You can see them too, right?

Would you like fries with that quake?

Last night I experienced my second earthquake in as many weeks. I had been in Japan about a week when the first one occurred. It was just a nice entry-level earthquake, and wasn't so scary because I was at school and the receptionist was there so I wasn't alone. We stopped what we were doing and stood in a doorway while we watched the doors swing back and forth. What surprised me was the total lack of sound. I always expected an earthquake to be accompanied by a big rumbling sound, you know, the sound of the planet shifting..., but it was totally quiet and wasn't much more shaking then when Gromit scratches his ear with his back foot while he's on my bed.
Last night however was a bit more unnerving. It was 12:30am and I was exactly where I am now: sitting on the couch, blogging about my first week of teaching when my apartment started to shake. It was very subtle at first but amped up somewhere in the middle and my sliding glass doors started to bang against each other. I did what I was supposed to and turned off the gas, opened the front door and then stood in the doorway furthest from the windows. I have a big vertical beam right in the center of my apartment that makes for an excellent earthquake station. I'd like to tell you that I stand calmly in said doorway and watch in wonder while considering the mechanics of plate tectonics, but the truth is I wrap both arms and legs around the beam like a monkey, press my forehead into it and repeat "ok stop now" until it does. Then, as soon as it's over I run next door to Natasha's for a hug.

my earthquake beam

Needless to say, after that I was wide awake for the rest of the night. I only got a few hours sleep this morning and have been beat all day, so I'm off to bed as soon as I finish this. I have to give the Japanese media some props (people don't say that anymore, do they?) because THREE MINUTES after the quake ended, it was on every channel. They had maps that showed the force of the quake in each area of Honshu, they had video taken while things were shaking at the epicenter and were interviewing people about any damages their property sustained. Amazing.

So the story is, it was a 6.8 at the epicenter in northern Honshu (that's my island), but it's a good ways off. 6.8 doesn't sound all that bad on the Richter scale but here we use the Japan seismic intensity scale and it only goes to seven. Here on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba, it was only a 3.8. This site updates instantly after an earthquake and shows exactly what went down and where. Here's the picture it was displaying last night. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, I am the furthest southern point in turquoise. The red X is where you do not want to be.
Here is the chart that describes the hell that breaks loose at each interval. Notice that for a 3 point something it says "some people become frightened." That was me. My neighbor said he considered getting out of bed but didn't. I only hope that after a few months I will be as bored with all this as he is. Well, off to sleep curled up around that vertical beam. Good night!

Beats the hell out of reading Philadelphia building code

Well, I've just finished my first week in my brand new temporary career. To be perfectly honest, I took the job to live in Japan, not to quench an life long thirst for teaching. I came here planning to do my best and if nothing else, pretend to be a good teacher for as long as I could pull it off. Here's the plot twist: I really like teaching, and at the risk of sounding like a snot (which I am) I think I'm really good at it. I waffle back and forth about whether I prefer to teach kids or adults, so the fact that I have both types of classes on any given day suits me well. I get to use my creativity every second of the day and I have enough resources to build any kind of lesson I want. The library at each school branch is stuffed to the gills with 100 different types of bingo, flash cards, puppets, Cds, felt clothes, plastic food and a number of boxes I haven't opened yet.

My adults seem to think I'm cute and they get a kick out of how animated I am when I act out a phrase they don't understand. Two of my better performances so far: fashion model and bully. Also, the best mistakes happen in my adult classes. I write some examples of sentence structure on the board and then have a conversation topic to discuss for the last 20 minutes of class. Yesterday, I asked my adults to tell me where to take my friends and family when they come to Japan. The model sentences were:
You should go to...
You have to see...
I would take them to...
Because,
It is...
There are...
You can see.....
One of my favorite business men came up with the following: "You should go to Fuji-san because you are very beautiful." When I said "Wow, Thank you Toshio!" he realized his mistake, turned bright red and said "Oh excuse me, I am so embraced." For the rest of the class I picked on him by putting my hands over my heart and batting my eyelashes at him. He handled it well and I overheard him tell the receptionist on his way out,"Tanoshii Sensei." I happen to know that means fun teacher. Score.
My housewives class is very concerned about my initial impression of Japan. They want to know if I like the food, if the people have been friendly, and what I think of the weather. It has been crazy hot and humid here and when I said as much, the leader of the housewives said "Please, you must ignore our country until September." I knew what she meant, but adorable none the less.
My kids are well behaved (except for one) and easily entertained. I've been teaching my young ones forward, backward, turn right, turn left, slow down, speed up and stop by pretending to be a robot. They take turns calling out the commands to send me around the room and they fall on the floor in hysterics when I run into a wall.
So far I am getting good feedback. Today was my second Wednesday and I have the same classes each week, so it was my second go around with today's classes. I am still trying to remember all their names, but the kids seemed to have warmed up to me pretty quickly as I was greeted with hugs, stickers and drawings addressed to Gail sensei. *and the grinch's heart grew three sizes that day*
I only remembered to take photos in two classes today as things move pretty quickly, but I'll try to remember more in the coming weeks.

My second class on Wednesdays: 7 five year olds. One of them is diving under the table to avoid the camera, the other is behind me tugging on my skirt.

One of my favorite classes (age 8-10)

The game in this video make look like chaos, but we know exactly what's going on. I was given this gift of a game from a fellow teacher named David. The students break into teams of two and then work their way in opposite directions around the table by naming the flashcards. When they meet a member of the opposite team they play rock, paper, scissors and the loser goes back to the starting line. If a team member can make it all the way around the table to the other team's base, they score a point. This can go on for a while and the kids go absolutely ape shit over this game. Thank you David.

I found my new happy place and the train gets me there in 20 minutes.

I had Thursday and Friday off this week after my first day of teaching solo (more on that later) and I spent the much needed downtime getting my apartment settled (updated video tour coming soon) and setting out on a day trip to the beautiful town of Narita. Narita is home to the country's largest airport, but just two train stops from the terminal lives Japanese heaven, and it's only a 20 minute train ride from my apartment. My first mini-trek away from my home base did not disappoint. I was so impressed that I'm going back on Sunday to delve a little deeper and bring fellow expat teacher Natasha along with me so I can watch the awe happen to someone else. Narita's culinary specialty is eel, and the main street lined with shops and restaurants mimics the snaking shape to the bottom of the hill where you see this:

The video below is taken from under the giant lantern at the top of the stairs. These pictures and video are such a sorry representation that I almost hesitate to post them. The temple's grounds are endless and totally engrossing. The quality of the light and sounds and smells are all completely lost in this medium, but the upshot is you will be shocked when you come visit even after viewing the photos. And for those of you who have been complaining that I don't appear in any of the photos, I make a cameo in the following video. Once I have some friends to take my picture, you'll be seeing more of my face ;).

I watched a ceremony in the main temple that included drums and fire and chanting which beats the shit out of anything I saw at United Methodist growing up. The monks were also kinda hot, but I feel wrong for thinking that. I was only brave enough to take the hot Monks picture when he wasn't looking.

I could only partially experience the temple because all of the signs are in Japanese and my sad secret is that I can't read. This makes for some fun games (more about that in a later post) but I do feel that I miss out on a lot. I think I'll do a little research about the temple so my trip on Sunday can be a bit more educational. Anyway, my point is, here are a few beautiful photos of the temple buildings and surrounding areas, but I can't tell you what they are called or what purpose they serve. Damn you illiteracy!

Wall and garden behind the main temple

Japanese friends: What is this?

I could go on and on about the scale and intricacy of the buildings all day, but what I really want to know is, how do these top heavy buildings survive the earthquakes?

Huge tangent warning: I have had earthquakes on the brain lately. The other teachers have been scaring the hell out of me with reports of bi weekly tremors and 6.8 quakes rattling the apartments. I'm always looking around for a good place to stand in case today is the day. So far, the best place I've found is a giant open field with no trees or wires in my immediate neighborhood. In the event of a large quake, the geniuses of Japan have developed an early warning system that sounds sirens. Trouble is, it only gives you about a 10 second warning. The large open field is about a three minute walk from my place, but I think the surge of adrenaline the siren will give me might just make up the difference. The ten second warning is supposed to give you enough time to turn off the gas, open the front door (in case of shifting) and stand in a doorway. I've rehearsed this several times and with my quickest speed, I'll still have almost four seconds left over for screaming and crying.
Enough about that, back to my happy place, which is now Narita's temple grounds. After passing through the first large temple, I came to this scene:
I thought the little puppet worm from Labyrinth might show up and tell me which way leads straight to the castle, but no dice, so I went right. I was rewarded with the most beautiful place I have ever seen, EVER. Dubrovnik in Croatia recently held this record, but we have a new winner.


I spent the next few hours wandering paths though a lush forest filled with trees I have never seen before, birds I have never heard before and ponds containing the biggest coy I have ever seen. You can see the coy from clear across the pond, see for yourself.
A hint for those new to blogs: If you click on the picture you can see the full size version.

Lunch time with the turtles and fish

I bought myself the wall hanging above in one of the shops on the way back to the train station to remind me of this day. My visit to Narita made me absolutely sure I am in the right place at the right time. I can't wait to take those of you who visit!

Just another Friday morning in Japan

Doggie fetch newspaper

I’m a morning person in Japan. This is ridiculous because at my old job, the hours were 8:30-5:00 and I would drag myself out of bed every morning after hitting the snooze button multiple times. Here, my job never starts before noon and sometimes ends as late as 9:00pm, but I’m up and ready for my day at 5:00am. There are several reasons for this. I’m sure the jet lag and the opposite hemisphere have something to do with it, but mostly, it’s this crackhead of a bird.



He’s outside my window every morning right around 4:30 sounding like a rabid howler monkey. The video doesn’t really do it justice because of the dinky microphone on my camera, but it’s insane how loud this bird is. I thought about making a slingshot, but would more than likely break my neighbors’ windows, giving a whole different meaning to “gaijin smash”. So, since I have 6 or 7 hours to kill before I need to be at work, I’ve changed my daily walk to an early morning one. Here’s what I found this morning on my two hour walk. Note: the first hour was intentional, the second hour was trying to find my way home.

I met this little guy on his way to school. It was obviously show and tell day so I asked him “nan desu ca?” (what’s that) and he proudly showed me a huge cockroach. I would have preferred a hamster, but it makes for a great picture. The young school kids all wear matching yellow hats and backpacks which adds to the cuteness, especially when they are in packs.


Right before I lost all sense of direction, I came across a thick bamboo grove with an overgrown path leading into it. Naturally, I went. I found this awesome ruin of an old Japanese house. It had some kind of old cart rusting inside. A few yards away, in the thick of bamboo, was another building that was too dilapidated to recognize. I hung around for a while but a few large spiders eventually persuaded me to get back to the road.




After being totally lost for a while, I found a shrine right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. I’m not sure if it is Shintoist or Buddhist but I know a muppet who would know. Mup? Care to comment?

The interior of the shrine was dark and cool and completely hidden from the neighborhood surrounding it. It had a long rectangular pool of water, a hollow tree with what appeared to be its own mailbox, an open shrine with intricate wood carvings and a bell, and two smaller shrines with small statues inside and folded paper tied around them. Observe:

The lions guarding the entrance made me smile

Found the timer function!

Not a bad mini expedition. I’ll post more as I explore. Time to go to work!

Bloggin on the sly (you'll see)

It is almost 8PM on my first full day in Japan. Strangely, it is already starting to feel like home. I’ve already seen my school, met some of the teachers, been to the grocery store, drug store, houseware store, ridden the train twice, and found a local coffee bar. My emotions have traveled the length of the spectrum a few times today. I still feel nervous about using my Japanese because when I get it right, people launch into a super fast and lengthy response to which I repeat “Sorry, my Japanese isn’t very good yet” and bow a lot until they stop talking. When I get it wrong, people giggle and then tell me how good my Japanese is. I’m not sure which one is worse. I have to just resign myself to being embarrassed and go for it or I won’t improve. One of the hardest things to do so far has been walking into stores or restaurants. It sounds weird, but once you walk in, someone will address you and it’s sink or swim.

Today, I saw a “coffee bar” called Monkey. The awnings say Monkey Beer and Monkey Coffee. I liked the sound of that so I ventured in, or at least tried to. Almost all of the doors here are automatic sliding doors but you have to get right in front of the door for it to open. I stood in front of the entrance and nothing happened, so after a few moments I tried pushing on the door thinking maybe it would swing inward. Nope. Now everyone inside the cafe is looking at me trying to get in and I felt my ears get hot. I considered running away, but I live in a small town and I don’t blend in, so it would be pointless not to see this through. So then I tried to (gracefully) pry the door open with my fingers. No dice. I backed up and looked for instructions when the door slid open. A waitress came outside and showed me a small metal plate next to the door. She touched it with on finger and the door opened again. I’m guessing the kanji on the little plate read “touch here to open”. I took a mental picture of the writing and hope to avoid that situation again.

The Monkey Cafe and its impossible entry

Once inside the cafe I sat at the counter and asked for a coffee. It must have sounded convincing because it was answered with a series of questions that I couldn’t understand. Thankfully, questions usually end with “desu ca?” or I wouldn’t even know when to nod or shrug (my two defaults). I answered all of the questions with yes and won a cup of coffee. I was actually very good. I was hungry but couldn’t read the menu so I just pointed to the persons lunch next to me and said “one please.” It was some kind of gravy and meat over rice, a small salad and little egg salad sandwiches. The picture is below, maybe one of my Japanese friends can tell me what this is? It was just ok, but I said “very delicious” (cho oishii) and everyone giggled. I don’t know why that was funny. Best not to know I think.

My first meal in a restaurant

Today I kept up a long tradition (evening #2) of taking a long walk around my neighborhood at dusk. It’s nice and cool and I can hear families talking and even smell dinner cooking. I am thrilled with where I live. I am a five minute walk to the train station and the heart of the shopping district which is filled with lights and sounds and smells, but my immediate neighborhood is all residential. The houses are close together, but they are all distinctive and have beautiful gardens. From my balcony, I hear birds chirping and kids playing and it smells like oranges and pine needles. I love it. I walked for about two hours tonight and found a whole different commercial district I didn’t know about, a huge (and much cheaper) grocery store just a few blocks away, and a graveyard surrounded by park. Hey Cat and Jude, when you come visit, we are exploring the graveyard with wine and flashlights. Here come the visuals.

My street facing my apartment at the top of the hill

And looking the other way towards downtown

House on the corner (can I have please?)
Japanese graveyard a few blocks away

Everyone talked so much about how expensive Japan is, but so far I don’t see it. Most things are cheaper from what I can tell, but then I never paid much attention to grocery prices at home. My lunch was $9 including two cups of coffee (and a hot towel to wash up with!) Not too shabby. I got all of these groceries and supplies (and the awesome bag) for $41:
My favorite thing in this group (and ironically the most expensive) was the hand soap. There were tons of bottles in that isle with no english on them and I was having a hard time distinguishing between lotion and shampoo and hand soap. I bought this one because the picture made it obvious that this is what I was after. It was $7, but the picture on the sticker was worth it alone. Check out the label:
It's a demonic looking Japanese kid with dirt all over his hands. He also has germs and mud attacking him from all angles. This sticker also served as my first decoration in my apartment because it's now on my fridge. Japan is so wacky like this EVERYWHERE. You really don't need cable here. Today I visited three different grocery stores because they are so facinating. Facinating and unknowingly hilarious. All the markets had clubby pop music playing, and the third one had a song with x rated lyrics in English. All these families are walking around picking out cereal with calm smiles on their faces and the lyrics over the loud speaker are "hit me cause I'm bad, f**k me cause I'm dirty" I had to hide in corner and crack up before I could continue my search for salt and pepper. You guys have got to come visit me, this place is awesome. And when you do, here is where you will be staying. Here is the official guided tour of my apartment (with audio!) As the Japanese say, "Please Enjoy."

The official guided tour of my apartment (with audio!)

My apartment is small but I don’t have any furniture so it seems quite roomy. Its very Japanese looking and it makes me smile whenever I walk in. I haven’t had to use the air conditioning yet (although I tried it to make sure it worked). I sleep with my balcony screen doors open so I get a breeze and can here the locusts. They sound totally different here; much more melodic and less machine gunish.

Well before everything closes I’m going to walk my laptop down to the internet cafe and see if they will let me plug in there rather than using their computers. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to post this with some pictures tonight. My internet is set to be installed on Monday the 14th, so it will be a lot easier for me to communicate then. In the mean time, don’t worry about me. I am doing just fine but miss you all terribly.

ps- update: brought my laptop down here and they said no, I had to use one of their computers. I did it anyway. HA. Stupid foreigner doesn't understand the word no.
update 2: I passed the liquor store on the way here. Stoli vodka is 11 bucks a bottle. Yellow tail wine is 9. Did my plane crash? Am I in heaven? People are short in heaven.