Gratitude '08

Last year I was grateful to be alive. This year I am grateful for my life. There is a huge difference. Some things on the list are trivial and some as important to me as the air that I breathe. Again, in no particular order, 100 things for which I am grateful. This year's list was exceptionally easy to fill up, the mark of a truly excellent year.

1. International shipping
2. White Rabbit Press kana flashcards
3. Brita water filters
4. Pasmo
5. Electric blankets
6. Good memorization skills
7. Charades
8. My neighborhood recycle shop
9. Ikea
10. FAST internet
11. Skype
12. The shoe store in Usui that sells womens' size 3L shoes
13. http://www.jorudan.co.jp/english
14. Liz and Joe and their awesome idea
15. My last two weeks in the States
16. My brother, for being one of my favorite people to be around, and for managing the mutt.
17. Bravery
18. Stupidity
19. The 100 yen shop
20. Millie Mamachari
21. Isolation and time to think
22. A global market for English education
23. Maruetsu
24. NO CRIME
25. The perfect running park three blocks away
26. Izakayas
27. Great great great great luck
28. Narita-san
29. My adorable Japanese style apartment
30. 25 hour workweeks
31. First dates
32. Zoe and Ashley and our whirlwind trip to see everything
33. Pointing
34. The Shinkansen
35. Jon Stewart
36. 160 Gigs of stuff to watch when it rains (thanks Chris!)
37. Neighborhood cats
38. Wonderful students
39. Matt and Beth and the incredible luck in meeting them
40. Glen and Steff and our Sunday morning muffin ritual
41. Facebook
42. The Shinkawa river path
43. My waterproof camera (Thanks Dad!)
44. Bit torrents
45. Hot tea
46. People giving out packs of tissues at every train station
47. Yaki-Niku, Yaki-Imo, Yaki-Tori and many other Yaki things
48. Small earthquakes
49. Visitors! (Chris, Alex, Zoe, Ashley, Eric, Hiromi, Michelle, Dad, Cheryl...and counting!)
50. Knowing I am missed
51. Clementines
52. The Gaijin Smash!
53. My rice cooker
54. The departure of the possessed howler monkey bird from my balcony
55. Beth having a good year
56. My Macbook
57. Feeling proud of myself
58. Vending machines
59. 7-11
60. Teachers' editions
61. My compass
62. Pimsleur language CDs
63. My volunteer private tutor, Rika
64. JapanIcan.com
65. Jenny and our bicycle trips
66. Christmas trees
67. High valued Yen
68. Ambien
69. Japanese customer service
70. Landing on my feet
71. Lonely Planet guidebooks
72. Dissolving regrets
73. Thirty
74. Mom and Dad and their unwavering encouragement no matter how wacky the idea
75. Tatami and futon sleeping
76. Having such a great family to miss
77. My summer with Cat and Jude
78. Only waking up to an alarm once a week
79. The word 'Domo' and the particle 'wa'
80. Care packages
81. NO CRIME (bears repeating)
82. Not knowing what country I will live in next year
83. Barack Obama
84. My friends who really work to stay in touch with me
85. Wii fit
86. Tempura
87. My 30th Birthday weekend and all those involved. It was the best I ever had.
88. Shrinking
89. MIL
90. The nightly English newscast at 9:00
91. A whole new world to explore
92. Streaming video and proxy blockers
93. Simplification
94. Trains that are always on time
95. Long aimless walks
96. hugs
97. Those tissues with the lotion in them that don't make your nose all red
98. Irony
99. Carpe Diem
100. Japan

Oh not much, what did you do this weekend?

Until now, Tokyo and I had been doing a lot of flirting and occasionally making out, but this weekend, we spent quite a bit of time together and took our relationship to the next level. I spent the weekend with my new city, and I can say with confidence "Upgrade!"

Here's a taste of what I got into, just wandering around seeing the sights with a soundtrack comprised mostly of Amy Winehouse, Badly Draw Boy, The Killers, Talking Heads, and Dustin Fisher's awesome new album :-)

I took a brief snooze on a round red couch with some new friends at 4:00am.

I spent some time with a frog fountain watching the city go by.


I had a beer under the tracks with some colorful characters


I saw the sun rise and the start of the commuter work day.

Then onto the colorful leaves in Ueno Park.

I had green tea at this gorgeous cafe overlooking the lily pond.

I tried my first roasted yam-potato type thing. Delicious!

I saw a swan feeding some ducks.

I was admiring the light in this section of the park when I heard....

Jewpanese music. And the ubiquitous crazy old Japanese dude.

Ah Tokyo, You are a freak. See you next weekend!

I seek the geek.

I've been meaning to get to a section of Tokyo known for being geek mecca for sometime. I've always considered myself to be part geek due to my unabashed fondness for Nintendo, Tolkien and consumer electronics, but I was straight out of my league in the famous Akihabara. I was on a mission to find some Christmas gifts for a teenage friend of the family back in the states who is into Japan's biggest export, Anime. I had a list of characters that she liked and thought it would be easy to wander into Anime central and pick up some goodies without too much confusion.

Akihabara in the rain

Two of my most patient and easily entertained friends, Glen and Steff, agreed to meet me there, as they were on a hunt for some high end speakers. They tried to convince me the speakers were to compliment the 60" Plasma they have been eyeing, but the truth is they are aiming to throw some wicked Kareoke parties in 2009. I have the pictures to prove it. Anyway we made a day (and night) of it, looking for some allusive Japanese cartoon characters in a sea of animated madness. I met them at Akihabara station and on our way to a Singaporian feast, we had some fun with oversized advertising. For the record, yes I am wearing boots, a coat, a scarf and shorts. It's a Tokyo thing.

This one had something to do with racing, but beyond that, I just don't know.

Steff and I show them how it's done.

Then Glen and I set out with with great determination to explore the depths of the geek kingdom. We were a little alarmed to encounter eight story department stores selling nothing but action figures and still nothing that matched the names on our list. I hadn't bothered to do any research before beginning the expedition and we found that we were helplessly lost, armed only with a list that read: Naruto, Fruits Basket, Daisuke, and D N Angel. Floor by floor and beer by beer we traveresed the mayhem and witnessed some of the more disturbing things I have seen in 29 and 11/12ths years. Each floor was crazier than the last, some were cute, some were scary, some were naked. In the end, our mission was a success after some embarrassing exchanges in broken Japanese with the sales clerks. I'd like to show you the loot, but sorry Ashley, you'll have to be surprised when Fed-ex arrives sometime before Christmas.

The stores in Akihabara are in stark contrast to the rest of mild-mannered Japan. There are flashing lights, 9 story escalators, people in french maid costumes handing out packets of tissues, men with bull horns, and people dressed up as their favorite characters from comics, games and movies.
In one department store we found both a $60,000 TV (worth every penny) and some floor models of Japan's newest and most embarrasingly suggestive workout machine. I don't know what it's called, but it has stirrups and it needed to be filmed. If I ever run for congress, this will be the video that the Republicans dig up. I post it here in good faith.

Sorry Mom.

Japan Reacts

I would have loved to been home yesterday. I felt the need to stand on the lawn on the Constitution Center and yell "It's all not lost!" I would have liked to celebrate with my friends and the other 83% of Philadelphians who saved Pennsylvania from the dreaded red tide of stupidity. And personally, I think that now would be a very good time to ring the Liberty Bell again, just for history's sake. If one crack made it famous, imagine what two could do.

Although my mind was consumed by all things American yesterday, I had a very busy day to contend with here in Japan. My Japanese lesson starts at 10am and I need to catch a 9:30 train to get there, so I had to leave the house just as the polls on the east coast were closing. I went straight from the lesson to a staff meeting at noon. I ran from the station, busted into the teachers' lounge ten minutes early and still catching my breath, yelled "Someone give me the count!" I noticed everyone was smiling so I relaxed a little even before they gave me the state by state percentages. At that point they had just called Pennsylvania for Obama, but Virgina, Ohio and Florida were still purple. After the meeting I caught another train home and decided to race home for 20 minutes before going to classes to check the internet. I pulled up CNN and the headline read: Barack Obama is Elected President.

America is back.

I had little time to call a few people and twirl in the living room before I had to head to work. I felt like celebrating loudly in the streets and causing a real scene, but the Japanese aren't big fans of the outburst, so I ran back to the train station quietly, but with a huge smile on my face. I contained my excitement until 10 minutes later on the platform when three other teachers came up the escalator. We disregarded the social norms and immediately formed a four-person, jumping, Obama-chanting, group hug. We broke it up when the train arrived and as I looked around the crowded station, I was not surprised to see that everyone was looking at us. I was, however, surprised to see a lot of big smiles, some high school boys pumping their fists in the air, and quite a few thumbs up from the crowd. When I boarded the train, two old women across the aisle smiled warmly at me. One of them leaned forward and said "Obama. Happy."

Yes, that sums it up nicely.

My first class of the day was an adult intermediate class. The class has three students: two retired men in their 70's, Mitsuru and Toshio, and a housewife in her 40's, Tomie. Mitsuru arrived wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket and was eager to point it out to me. Before we had even entered the classroom, he said "Obama is White Sox fan, I am Obama fan, so I wear." I was interested to hear about their impressions of the candidates before I gave them mine, and my job is to get them talking, so I started the class by first explaining the word impression, and then asking them about each candidate.

I wrote down what they said because I had a feeling it was going to be good.

Tomie: I like Obama because he is young and energy and very different from Bush. I think he will repair America and will be good and kind for Japan. I think today is a good day and I am happy. (notice the word repair. She looked it up in her electronic dictionary. I think it was a good choice in this case)

Toshio: I think Obama has a good mood. I mean, I think he is always calm and thinking and not angry. He will think about things more before he decide. President of United States have to think about many things and be intelligent, not be angry.

Mitsuru: I watch McCain and I think he is saying "America is number 1" but Obama is saying "America is country in world, and world is big." He is good for world too, not only America. And world will be change thinking about America and we can be friends again and be kind to each other. Also, he says war in Iraq should be stopping now. Me too. I think so.

Last week, in this same class, we were practicing "Have you ever....?" "Yes, I have/No I haven't" and now they were giving political commentary far superior to the pundits I've seen on CNN. That either speaks very highly of my intermediate class, or reflects very poorly on CNN. I was impressed with their answers, both succinct and profound.

They struggled to transform their thoughts into English and asked amazing questions. In the hour that followed, we never got to the text book. They put me to the test asking questions about the American political system and I managed to explain (with many drawings and dictionary references) the following concepts:
Red states and blue states, the religious right, proposition 8, media bias, the electoral college, popular vote, nationalized health care, Roe vs Wade, welfare, trickle down economics, tax cuts, fear-mongering, polarization, and irony (in that our country's name begins with the word 'United' and yet on the board I have drawn a map divided into territories by blue and red marker shading).
They were more than interested in the election and what it represents, they were passionate about it, which I have seen much more of in the 24 hours since.

One area of Japan is particularly thrilled today, but for a silly reason. There is a town in Western Japan called Obama, and they have become the unlikely celebrities of news broadcasts on every channel as they celebrate their namesake's victory.

Some pictures of the revelry from the Japan Times:

Click to look closely. Must have these.

Yum, an Obama 'Fisheries Burg'. This is one way I will not be celebrating.

This is how I spend my time.

This week marked a major milestone in my Japanese speaking ability. I have been studying my ass off for months now, and just in the last few days, some amazing things have happened. The most surprising has been that suddenly, I have become the designated speaker when out with my friends. Whenever we encounter a hurdle that requires a dialogue in Japanese, I find myself being pushed to the front of the group while being cued "Gail, ask this guy about......" or "Find out how...." This is a new development that makes me proud, but also a little scared. It's a lot of pressure.

Then, last Wednesday I went out with four of my students to an izakaya (bar) after class. Yuri, Miku, Misa and Asami are all friends in their twenties who decided to chip in on a weekly private English lesson together. The are beginner level students, but not afraid to make mistakes, which makes them very easy to teach. They will just throw every word they know at you until they have made their point. The opposite is true with many adult students who refuse to utter a word until they have double checked the correctness in their electronic dictionary. I like these girls because they are enthusiastic, up for anything, and damn good note takers. They are more interested in being able to communicate that being right, and I share their philosophy.

I've gone out with students before, but I usually have either Justine (fellow teacher who is near fluent) or Mio (Bi-lingual receptionist) to translate when times get rough. This night, I was on my own and had to really stretch my brain. I spoke in BUSTED Japanese for about two hours. I mixed my tenses, screwed up my word order and acted out several words, but in the end we were communicating and having fun. I confused them a few times with sentences like:
"Last weekend, I will go on a date."
"It was having fun."
"We maybe go again soon or later."

They seemed to get the gist despite my tense butchering and asked questions in broken English to find out more:
"How many years does he have?"
"How good is his face?"
"He is tall or short next to you?"

By far the highlight of the evening was when I realized the last train was leaving soon and asked the waiter for our check (Okanjo kudasai). He looked at me blankly, but then when Miku said exactly the same thing he hurried off to grab the bill. I said in Japanese "I said that! He didn't understand me!" Then Yuri said in English without hesitating "I know, he's crazy." I just taught them the word crazy earlier that evening; it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

At the end of the evening I had a splitting headache and was mentally exhausted. I don't think I have ever been mentally exhausted before. Physically and emotionally, yes, but this was probably the hardest I have ever thought for an extended period of time. When I got home I could barely get the key in the door. I took two tylenol and laid on the couch with a pillow over my head. The girls are coming over for dinner on Friday so the brain's going to have to run another marathon.

My study schedule isn't so slack on any other day for that matter. I am taking the Japanese Level Proficiency Test (level 4) in 5 weeks and still have a lot of ground to cover. I took a practice test with my tutor two weeks ago and BOMBED it, but at least I know where the gaps are now. I think I may have registered for the test prematurely before understanding the extent of the curriculum, but my goal is to at least fail it respectably.

A few days ago I bought My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS and I think it just may be the tool to get me there. My weekly study regimen is this:
50 Kanji (able to recognize, know the meaning and write in the correct stroke order)
2 chapters in my text book Japanese for Busy People (about 10 pages)
3 audio lessons in Pimsleur Japanese II (30 minutes each, I listen to them twice)
At least 5 hours of drilling and practice using the DS program

This week I noticed I can write at almost normal speed using the kana (hiragana and katakana). A page in my text book now takes about 20 minutes. It used to take over an hour. I've been told my handwriting is great, but I've also been told that I speak Japanese very well and that I look just like Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ so I take it with a grain of salt.

An exercise from my text book Japanese for Busy People,
I'm only moderately busy so it's only moderately effective.

I feel pretty good about the Hiragana and the Katakana at this point. I arrived already knowing Romanji (roman letters) so that makes three out of four alphabets done. Unfortunately, it's the fourth one that has more than 8,000 characters and prevents me from reading most things. I have been paying attention to the kanji around me, looking for the ones that I already know and to try to notice a pattern in ones I don't and gather their meaning that way. The best way I've found to recognize them is to associate them with a familiar picture. Then, the kanji will pop out at you wherever you go and you can start to guess what it might mean depending on where you see it.

Joe and Liz and I played this game in Shikoku when we had maps noted only in Kanji. The following nonsense was uttered pretty much verbatim in the car "OK, we're looking for a sign with three characters. The first one looks like a chest of drawers with a crooked vase on top. The second one looks like a diving board over a whirlpool and the third one looks like a tall man speaking into a short microphone."

It's kind of like looking for animal shapes in the clouds, but instead of lying on your back in a field relaxing, you are lost in a city of 27 million and are surrounded my a few thousand different clouds at any given moment. The sign below is a train station name. The four large characters at the top are kanji. The six smaller characters below are hiragana (these I can read!). They both say "Kita Narashino" which is the name of a town close by where some of my friends live.
Take a look at the Kanji and let's see if your imagination is as twisted as mine.
Don't forget: Click to zoom.

Can you see what I see?

Character 1: Nazi soldier marching away from an overgrown coat hanger
Character 2: A close up of a female robot wearing fake eyelashes
Character 3: Viking war ship
Character 4: A man selling a large waffle iron

First the Kanji in red at the top:
1. Small ikea bookshelf
2. 2 toothbrushes making a quick exit out a window (notice the movement lines)
3. A barbershop pole sliding down a mountain
4. Tiki monster pinata

Now for the first three characters in green (the rest in green are kana)
1. The Pringles man screaming
2. An old TV with rabbit ears broadcasting an image of the Union Jack
3. A woman adjusting the cushions on a folding chair

And if you think that's funny, check out what I found in my basic English adult text book the other day. I think Dr. Dre might be co-authoring to make ends meet. First, in chapter one, this is the illustration used to demonstrate first and last names. Look at the depiction of the fans in line. Awesome, and fairly accurate.


Then check out the topic for unit 4! Keep in mind, the first three units started with a question too. They were: How are you today? What's the weather like? How much is it?
And now, behold Unit 4:

WTF?!?!?

The country mouse and the city mouse

My hood

Does anyone else remember that book from childhood? It's one of the few that stuck in my memory along with Wide Awake Jake, Little Black Sambo (not so PC these days), and A Wrinkle in Time. The Country Mouse and the City Mouse was basically a comparison of pros and cons of living environments. I often quote the story when my Mom comes to visit me from her horse ranch in Georgia. Her awe at city life reminds me of the mouse's reaction when he saw all the food in the city. During a visit a few years ago, my Mom and I and two girlfriends walked out of my front door, hailed a cab and were on our way to see Pretty Alien (best band ever ;-)) at the North Star Bar. On the way there I noticed my Mom was grinning ear to ear. When I asked her why, she replied with unbridled enthusiasm, "This is just like Sex in the City!" Cutest Mom ever.
As silly as I thought that was then, I get that same look on my face every time I go to Tokyo. I'm only 40 minutes away by train, but it might has well be a different country. Allow me to demonstrate with narratives from two sequential cloudy Sundays, one here in Chiba and one in Tokyo. As you've seen before, the urban sprawl end rights about where I live, followed by rivers and fields and beautiful cycling paths as far as the eye can see. I've always enjoyed the edge of a party.
I went for a walk with some Japanese lessons on my ipod and turned around when it started to rain, about an hour from my house. Here's what I found:

The bugs here are freaky.
I was going to put my hand next to it for scale, except that would have required putting my hand next to it.

Some of the best running trails web out across Chiba from very near my house. It happened to be on this very day that I lost my battle with a cold that had been trying to get me for a week, and am still suffering from the stubborn Japanese cough of death, but hopefully soon I can pick the pace back up to a run. For now, I still visit this trail frequently, but at a walk with Pimsleur Japanese lessons in my ears. Luckily, the path is empty most of the time or I would appear nothing short of crazy muttering random Japanese phrases to myself in quick succession.

The Pimsleur method is brilliant for retention. It introduces new material with this odd backwards syllable repetition exercise and constantly quizzes previous material. I use the language I've learned multiple times a day and am often mistaken for much further along on the fluency trip thanks to the good pronunciation. The down side is that I am doomed to wander my town with a pained look on my face reciting "Fill it up please; The child is big; There are many cars; The coffee is expensive here; My husband would like to drink water." Oh well, they already stare at me anyway, now it's justified.

This guy rode past me on a Pee-Wee style pimped out bike with an adorable mutt in the basket. He made me stop in my tracks and smile, so when I saw him on the way back I asked if I could take his picture. He asked me if I liked dogs and I said yes. Then if I'm not mistaken, he told me his dog was Canadian. I am probably mistaken.

My town is filled with characters much like this guy. There is one man who hangs out near the dive yakitori place who has a mullet worthy of a Wall-mart in Arkansas and wears Simpsons t-shirts almost exclusively. Whenever he sees me he says "Herro mamasita!" and then laughs hysterically. I have started to avoid said yakitori place.

Although there are a few strange ducks here in Katsutadai, I must admit that Tokyo lets few of them leave. As I mentioned I was in the Toke last Sunday with some new friends, Glen and Steff. I met them at a "Tokyo new friends" meet-up in Roppongi about a month ago. Roppongi is the little New York of Tokyo where everything is in English, you can find any chain restaurant imaginable, and the beers are 10 dollars. I am not a fan of Roppongi, but we had a decent time at the meet-up and I made some new friends over 5 dollars Budweisers on special, much to my displeasure.

Not happy about the Bud, but loved the sign on the right

Steff, Glen, Me and some dude who I went to college with in Tucson whose name I have forgotten AGAIN. Sorry dude!

Glen and Steff were kind enough to let me crash at their place last Saturday night rather than having to catch the last train home after a night out in Shibuya. I convinced them to meet me for a late night drink at the awesome view bar I mentioned in a previous post. I was proud to show off the swank bar that Keiko showed me, and Glen and Steff were kind enough to act impressed and not bitch about the cover charge. Imagine my chagrin when I saw that the view from their apartment was better than the one from the bar. Sorry guys, next time we can drink on your balcony.


I was too awe struck to remember to take night time shots, but I fell asleep with a floor to ceiling view of twinkling lights and Tokyo Tower nearly at eye level. You can literally watch Tokyo go about its business from their living room. Over coffee and muffins the next morning Glen and Steff gave me the birds eye tour. They pointed out A 10'x10' mesh netting encased driving range on a rooftop a few block away and told me they occasionally see a man decked out in his finest golf attire practicing his drives with no fear of ricochet. We also watched a hydrofoil buzzing around Tokyo Bay and vowed to find out where it docks and take a ride. I live just on the other side of Tokyo Bay, so I may have found an interesting alternative to the train.

After breakfast, they took me to Yoyogi Park which I have now declared officially the best people watching on the planet. Tokyo has got the market cornered on bizarre and Yoyogi Park seems to be the epicenter. I won't blow it for those of you coming to visit soon (Zoe and Ash, YAY!) but here's a taste of the awesome.

First the Rockabilly guys: The gather in the same place every Sunday with their own PA system, blast 50s rock, dance in a circle, smoke cigarettes and sit on old pink Chevrolets practicing their Fonz. Perfection. Also, please check out the level to which these guys have taken the Pompadour. Japanese hair is closer to the thickness of pipe cleaners then to mine, so the sculpting is much more effective.

Next we came across the "touch juggler" above. He was awesome but his moves reminded me of David Bowie in the movie Labrynth. *Shivers* I am still afraid of Bowie because of that movie.
The park is filled with bands of all kinds. Some of them are running very proffesional operations complete with stages, back drops, dancing girls, horn sections and PR reps selling CDs.

Others bands are less organized and consist of three friends, two guitars, and the funniest T-shirt ever. As an English teacher I feel the need to point out that it's missing an article. Depending on where you place the article, it could have two very different meanings. I'm not sure which one they were going for, but it's priceless.

PS, if you can peel your eyes away from the shirt, check it out: I found Waldo.

I owe you a blog, but meanwhile, behold: